


The Ouroboros

by Werepirechick



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: ...the kids do get a lil roughed up tho, AND FIX THE CANON, Also A Little Scared, Angst with a Happy Ending, Deception, Doomed Timelines, Everyone Not Directly Involved Is Very Confused, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, How Do I Tag This, Hurt/Comfort, I TAKE HAMMER, Major Character Injury, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Space War, TMNT 2019 Big Bang, The Character Death Warning Is Not For The Main Characters, Time Loop, but not really, dark themes, he dead, identity theft, if you didn't watch the space arc of 2012 tmnt, its splinter, tfw you steal your life from yourself, this might make absolutely no sense to you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-02-16 02:40:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21500494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Werepirechick/pseuds/Werepirechick
Summary: Six kids finally get to go home; six kids finally get to escape the city limits.Without realizing it, the six sent to the stars are relinquishing their identities, surrendering their homes, and essentially accepting banishment. The six on earth, from a world which died in front of them, have come too far to lose their happy ending again. To keep it, they’re willing to steal it even from themselves.No price is too high to pay when you’ve already paid the ultimate one.
Relationships: Donatello & Casey Jones & Leonardo & Michelangelo & April O'Neil & Raphael (TMNT), and misc other canon relationships
Comments: 56
Kudos: 132





	1. ACT ONE | PART ONE: DECEPTION OF THE FAITHFUL

**Author's Note:**

> this fic. this damn fic. once again i have joined the tmnt big bang event! it has caused me copious amounts of stress but by god did i want to share this post-canon fix to 2012's shitty storyline. big thanks to my beta readers/tolerant friends: Rhi, Inco, Jo, and Lulu. (the artists who participated will be added to credits as their art is added)
> 
> to avoid confusion of whose POV each chapter is from, i'll mark each as such. and no, the term 'alpha' in this has nothing to do with abo stuff; it's the title of the new healthy timeline, versus the original timeline's doomed versions. (shout out to homestuck fans who'll probs have an easier time following things.) and make sure you've read the tags listed above, i'm pretty sure i've covered the broad spectrum for triggers atm, but i'll be adding more as we progress.
> 
> so... yeah, thanks for clicking on this? it's been years since it was 2012, and yet. i'm still obsessed with fixing that iteration of tmnt. kicking it off, here's the first of the Alphas' POVs. enjoy :)

Space is more beautiful than Leo ever could have imagined.

Fiction doesn’t do it justice, nor does scientific research. It’s big, and colorful, and teeming with life all across the universe. It’s already been a week and a half and they’ve barely begun to traverse the multitude of populated galaxies.

With their doppelgangers on earth, taking care of things back home, Leo has found himself feeling lighter than he’s felt in months. There’s guilt, too, in him shirking his responsibilities, but he’s technically taking care of them still. The time loop Donnie claims they’re in will ensure that even though they’ve been away for an extended period, now, they won’t miss anything important in the meantime.

So, Leo has let himself do something he hasn’t in years: goof off, act recklessly, indulge in whims. It’s liberating, dizzyingly so. Leo almost doesn’t know what to do with all this free time, but that’s taken care of easily enough with the help of his family.

They’ve seen cities, small villages; sat in a _real restaurant_ and shopped in a _real mall_ and no one gave them a second glance. The novelty of getting to actually be treated as _people_ hasn’t worn off at all; none of them can resist every new chance that comes, dragging one or more or _all_ of them along for the ride. The last planet they visited was populated by gigantic trees and plants, the inhabitants canopy peoples. Leo, against his better judgement, and uncaring for second thoughts, had engaged in treetop tag with his brothers and their friends.

The scare of Casey and Donnie tripping over one another, and then plummeting half the two-hundred-meter drop, had turned into a highlight of the trip. It’s not every day you’re snatched out of the air by enormous dragonflies, after all.

But even with the amount of distractions begging his attention… a part of Leo still thinks about earth, wondering what’s happened in their absence.

The homesickness grows, and eventually he’s forced to admit defeat. It’s two weeks since they left and the only other time he’s been away from home anywhere near that length was… the farmhouse. The association between that time in his life and the adventure of space is an unconscious, unwelcome thought, and it finally spurs him into asking:

“Can we call home?”

It’s spoken self-consciously, to Donnie alone, when they’ve got a moment to themselves. Donnie has turned his bunk in his and Mikey’s room into a stash of technology; Leo doesn’t know how his brother sleeps there. Come to think of it, he’s yet to see his brother sleep at _all_ lately.

The overly bright red eyes of his sibling dart up to him, magnified by the glasses he acquired (stole) three stops ago. Leo regrets the words slipping out of his mouth, second guessing if this is an opportune moment after all. A manically focused Donnie is either the happiest he can be, or the grumpiest.

“Can we what?” Donnie asks, staring without blinking.

Leo grimaces, embarrassed to be the one to crack first. No one else is homesick, far as he can tell. “Can we call, y’know, home?” Leo repeats, crossing his arms. He maintains eye contact despite himself. “It’s been two weeks; we should probably get in touch with our future selves and make sure we know when to travel back.”

It’s an excuse. A very bad one. Donnie already had a full hour of rant-discussion with Mikey and Raph during the first few days of their trip. Leo knows more about quantum physics and relativity than he ever wanted to, given the decibel Donnie hit, trying to convince their siblings that they’d know when they needed to go home, _when_ the needed to know, because that’s just how time travel _works, idiots._

Leo expects a snappish reply about how they’ve been taught the butterfly effect already, holding his breath as Donnie regards him.

Donnie narrows his eyes. Leo resists the need to avert his own.

“Fine,” Donnie says after a too-long pause. He rolls his shoulders and then stretches his arms above his head, joints popping. “I figured- ugh- one of you would start asking sooner than later. Should’ve known it’d be you.”

Leo bristles. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Donnie rolls his eyes and extracts himself from his nest of technology. “C’mon, let’s ask Honeycutt about moving us into range with earth. We’re too far right now for them to catch a signal.”

Leo huffs, stepping aside as Donnie stiffly leaves the bunkroom. The sound of joints popping continues for a concerning number of steps. Choosing to pick his battles, Leo lets the rude, monotone words go without further comment. At least Donnie is willing to help with this right now, albeit with his typical prickliness.

Leo follows Donnie’s steps to the ship’s bridge, eager to get into contact with earth.

-/-

Unsurprisingly, word gets around that they’re attempting to make contact.

“Weird, but if you think about it, _we’re_ the First Contact aliens right now.” Mikey sips noisily from his drink, elbows digging into Leo’s shoulder. He swallows, quiet for a beat. “I mean, first _peaceful_ contact anyway. Fuck the Kraang.”

“Fuck the Kraang,” April agrees. The two of them lean across their cluster to high-five, making Leo feel even more claustrophobic.

“Why are you all even here?” he asks tetchily, shaking Mikey’s weight off his shoulders and slumping further into his seat next to Donnie. Another set of arms come to rest on his head and Leo growls.

“’cause it’s not like we’re doing anything else right now,” Raph says, pressing down on Leo with his elbows. He’s doing it to be an asshole, and Leo reacts accordingly.

“Both of you _shut up,”_ Donnie snaps, hand darting out to slap both of them and break up the shoving fight. “God, it’s like I’m surrounded by ten-year-olds.”

Casey snorts, leaning into Donnie’s space to poke at the complex hacking he’s doing. “I’ve actually lived with a ten-year-old, Don. Trust me, it can be way worse than this.” Donnie slaps his hand away from the controls, the two of them exchanging hisses.

“This family is a fucking nightmare,” Mikey quips cheerily. April snorts and laughs.

“Everyone just- be quiet and stand still! Let me do my job and get this over with!”

Leo gives everyone crowding their pilot seat another baleful look, but settles down as they do. If they bug Donnie too much, he’ll storm off and refuse to help again. Not without copious bribing. It takes a few more minutes, during which Leo has to remind himself to _pick his battles_ and not grab Mikey’s noisy drink and chuck it- but finally Donnie gets his thing working and they get on with the radio communication.

They can’t video chat, or simply phone, since they’re all in space. But whatever Donnie is doing with satellites surrounding the earth, he’s making it work. As the line crackles, then starts ringing like a cell phone, there’s a round of cheers and roughhousing with Donnie.

“- _Hello?”_ asks Donnie’s voice through the communication line, and while it’s not the weirdest thing ever, it’s still somewhere in the top twenties to have time clones of themselves.

“Hi there, other me,” Donnie- the one next to Leo- says in a smugly satisfied tone. “A couple of little green men and their friends wanted to make a call down to earth. How’s good old terra doing, huh?”

“Anyone get maimed lately?” Casey asks loudly, leaning over top of Donnie.

“Did my Amazon order get there?” Mikey asks.

“How did you order from _Amazon?”_ Raph says incredulously.

“My biz, not yours.”

“Mikey-”

“Shut up! All of you, shut up!” Leo shouts over them, but he’s ignored as April joins in, while Donnie is still speaking, and why did he think they could manage to do this in an orderly fashion?

“ _Wow, I hate listening to this. I’m gonna hang up now.”_

“ _NO!”_ they all yell. Donnie shoves everyone away from himself and takes control of the situation again. “Sorry, we’re all just a little excited to hear news from home.”

“ _Hm,”_ is all Future Donnie says.

Leo frowns, nudging Present Donnie and quietly asking to take over. With clear reluctance, he’s allowed to. “We’ll get right to the point of this call: we want to know how things are going on your end of things, and when we should expect to time travel home.”

“ _Approximately_ speaking,” Donnie corrects. “Don’t give us details, I’m not living through the Butterfly Effect or any similar films.”

“ _Oh, uh…”_ There’s muffled noise on the communication line, extending to several moments long before Future Donnie returns. “ _Yeah, I can’t tell you that. Time stuff. And all that.”_

“Seriously?” April says, disappointed.

“ _Yep.”_ Future Donnie clears his throat. “ _On the bright side, we’re keeping everything in order here on earth, so you can all relax and enjoy outer space without worries, okay?”_

Leo feels uncomfortable, not knowing specifically when they’re going home, but… if this is how the timeline is supposed to play out, then it’s fine, maybe?

“Are you sure it’s alright?” he asks, pushing away the odd twist of doubt in his stomach.

“ _Yeah, totally,”_ Future Donnie says, now sounding distracted. “ _Hey, how’d you call my cell from space? Actually never mind I wanna figure it out myself, thanks for the afternoon brain teaser. Need anything else? I’m busy.”_

Leo glances at his family, seeing the somewhat miffed or confused expressions on their faces. Donnie responds before he can, saying, “Uh, not really, I guess? Thanks for reconfirming we will eventually come home, and that everyone is doing okay down there.”

“ _Sure, no problem,”_ Future Donnie says. “ _Bye.”_

And he hangs up. There’s a beat of silence. Leo glares at the screen, annoyed by the curt treatment.

Casey breaks the quiet, saying, “Wow, Donnie. Future you is a dick.”

“Oh fuck off,” Donnie starts, rising to the bait like he always does, and off the two of them go. Leo sighs long-sufferingly and climbs out of the pilot seat. He got a portion of the answers he wants, which is enough to keep him from dialing up Other Donnie again to force better ones.

Things will sort themselves out. They’re literally predestined to do so. Leo leaves the deck, members of his team trickling out behind him. They’re all electing to leave Donnie and Casey to squabble in peace, which at times like this, is really the only sane option. Their irate voices carry down the hall, even as the doors slide shut.

-\\-

They keep travelling, further outwards from the milky way galaxy. They don’t have any destination in mind, just tagging along with the professor or taking turns picking random quadrants.

Space hasn’t lost it’s wonder, even a full month into their journey. There’s always something new just around the corner to keep them busy. Mostly, it’s accompanying Honeycutt to meetings with old acquaintances. With the Triceratons gone, he can come out of hiding at last.

If Leo hadn’t been told by his future self, he might have been a bit leerier of trusting a stranger like this. But, with that blessing given, he and everyone else have relaxed steadily, accepting the professor’s presence into their midst. Honeycutt is an odd individual; distractible and somehow awkward despite his manners. Leo likes him well enough, though, even if he hasn’t many adults in his life to compare the droid to.

They’re moving into the first days of the second month, cruising in a sparsely populated quadrant closer towards home, when Leo finds Donnie in his pilot seat with the line to earth open.

“You get a call through?” Leo asks casually, leaning on the white dome behind his brother. They’ve been too far away for some time now; this’ll be their first chance at contact since the original attempt.

“Briefly,” Donnie says in a grumpy tone. Uh oh. “Other me didn’t pick up this time- Mikey did.”

“Oh,” Leo says. “Was he any help?”

“What do you think?”

“Hm. That bad, huh?”

Donnie scoffs, fiddling with the various programs he’s got open on-screen. “Apparently they were dealing with a ‘way serious, no-disturbances-allowed, full lockdown’ until the other me recovers from… something.” Donnie sighs. “It sounded like it was an accident involving a car? I don’t know. Future Mikey still mumbles _and_ speaks too fast.”

“I’m not surprised,” Leo says, lamenting. “So… is that it for now? We just wait again for an update?”

“Contacting via cell is difficult enough from this distance, I couldn’t do much else unless we were in the solar system’s orbit.” Donnie glances sorrowfully over his shoulder at Leo. “Why are our satellites so weak ranged? Why haven’t we advanced technology _at least_ to Kraang level? The American Military has a deal with Bishop, they _should_ be jumping us ahead by a decade, if not more by this fall…”

Leo tunes Donnie out, letting his brother finish his rant about shitty earth tech. Personally, Leo doesn’t mind the low-tech of home; he likes his laserswords very much, but he could live without them. (Even if they can cut through solid metal...) Sci-fi movies really glossed over how difficult it is to learn to use unfamiliar tech.

He stares at the ended call still shown on Donnie’s screens for a moment longer. Leo has a mild sense of worry for the future to come, given one of his brothers will end up injured enough he can’t answer his phone.

But that’s a concern for another time. Besides, it sounds like it all turned out okay. He asks Donnie to pull up their flight plan instead, wanting to go over specifics before they get going again.

They don’t get another chance to contact their alternate selves. Somehow, they end up in one battle after another, besieged by enemies that are relentless in their efforts to kill them. Running from one just leads them to bump into another- a whole string of deadly opponents who they’ve _never even met before._

“You’ll pay for what you did to my brother, _Terrans!”_ shouts the giant bipedal shark, whose concussive mace is getting closer to damaging something important by the second.

“What brother? Lady, we don’t even know who _you_ are, let alone your brother!” Mikey shouts back, blocking with his tonfas and being blown backwards for the umpteenth time. He hits the wall of the bridge and chokes, shell ringing from the impact as he slides down to kneel.

“I am Sabaleen! You killed my brother Armaggon,” she snarls, hefting her mace. “ _Prepare to die.”_

“Oh for- we don’t know who that is!” Raph yells, charging her along with Casey. His sais catch the shaft of the bludgeoning weapon, giving an opening for Casey to use his own.

It takes them forever to get Sabaleen off the ship, and not an hour’s time afterwards for Donnie and Honeycutt to dig up _multiple_ bounties on their heads. Mikey is plenty familiar with being on someone’s shit list, but having whole sectors of a galaxy on their tails? That’s a new one even for them.

He knows he’s not the only one wanting to retreat home, just for a bit, but they end up being herded further away instead. Sabaleen is still tracking them, and it’s not long until they run into some nutcase named _Dregg_ , who doesn’t even have the guts to face them personally _._ ‘Liaisons’ of the planet Sectoid 1 hammer them in waves, somehow always coming back every time in even _larger_ numbers. As funny as it is to tease Raph for being scared shitless of the giant bugs attacking them, it’s less fun to spend a full two cycles running from them with zero chances to rest.

“I’m going to strangle our future selves,” Raph says darkly, once they’ve finally given Dregg’s forces the slip. Again.

They’re all slumped into the stiff cushions of the lounge, exhausted and picking insect gore off themselves. Mikey snickers as Raph shudders at a particularly large bit of exoskeleton peeling off his kneepad.

“Wouldn’t that be suicide, technically?” Casey says from where he’s sprawled on the floor. He hasn’t made any effort to clean up, and so was banished from the couch.

“Only with his time clone,” Donnie says, head leaned backwards, eyes on the ceiling, “him killing the rest of us is just fratricide.”

“I won’t kill ‘em,” Raph says, crossing his arms. “Just, y’know. Hurt them enough for payback.”

“That’s assault,” Donnie says.

“You’re also risking manslaughter,” Casey adds.

“No, he intends to hurt them, so it’s pre-meditated assault resulting in death.”

“Ah, right.”

“Why do you two know so much about this?” April asks disapprovingly, and then shakes her head. “Actually? Never mind. I don’t wanna know.”

Mikey leans over Leo to whisper loudly to her, “They watch SVU on weekday nights together, like, religiously.” He’s elbowed and kicked for spilling the ‘secret’, laughing it off as April snickers.

The rest lasts all of a cycle. Heading for a planet the Professor assures them is neutral enough to let them purchase repairs, they fly right into the heat of an inter-planetary war.

Mikey isn’t scared of fights, he’s _way_ past getting nerves before one. The last few years have practically drilled it right out of him, out of all of them. But this is worse than war with Shredder, worse than their brief conflict with the Triceratons- it’s even worse than the _Kraang._

They’ve never encountered violence on a world-scale. They’ve never found themselves on a battlefield with soldiers numbering in the _millions._

Hailed by a ship that dwarfs their own, they narrowly escape being overwhelmed by Dregg’s armada. Within the hangar of the battleship, they all disembark cautiously to meet with their supposed allies.

Standing a short distance from their ship is half a dozen Salamander-esque aliens, standing stiff-backed and steely eyed. Raph notices that one soldier singles him out immediately, catching their vibrant gold eyes. He moves a hand to his weapons, wary of the intensity aimed his way.

That soldier marches directly over to them, striding right towards Raph. He balks, stepping back and feeling his family tense around him. They don’t react fast enough, however, to stop the soldier from grabbing his shoulders and hauling him forwards and-

“Haha what the fuck,” Casey says, shocked into hesitating like everyone else.

Raph vehemently denies it later, but he shrieks loudly as reacts about the same way he always does when someone gets too far into his space. He rips himself out of the grasp of the solider who just _\- who just_ \- and punches them hard enough they stumble.

“ _What the hell?!”_ he shouts, fists raised and prepared to hit again.

“Raphael-” starts the stunned alien.

“Wh- how do you now my name?!”

“I-”

“ _Why’d you fucking kiss me?”_

The salamander alien tries to placate him and Raph lashes out on instinct. His attack misses by a mile this time, the soldier dodging effortlessly, and then he’s lying on the floor, both arms pinned behind his back.

“I do not know what ails you, Raphael,” says the soldier in a stern voice, bending his arms painfully, “but I _will not_ allow this disrespect.”

“Oh, goodness,” Honeycutt frets, arm cannon charging in opposition to his worried tone. “It seems as though we’ve crossed paths with your doppelganger’s timeline once again.”

Raph hisses and snarls at the alien until they- _she_ , it turns out later- let him up off the floor. Y’Gythgba introduces herself after, following that up with demands for an explanation as to why they don’t remember her.

Raph very intently imagines punching his time clone in the face, once Y’Gythgba drops the bomb that they apparently had a _thing_ going on. He hates space, hates time travel, hates his stupid future self for telling him exactly _nothing_ about the shitstorm he left for Raph to deal with.

“Soooo… how was your first kiss?” Mikey and Casey ask him together, the second their group is left alone. Raph is _justified_ in taking out his embarrassed frustrations on them.

The prickling resentment he feels towards his supposed ‘future’ self doesn’t abate when the next bomb is dropped. Salamandria is at war, and it kind of sounds like it’s _his fault._

“What?” he asks, quieter than he means to. Raph is just. Floored. No way that’s right. “But, we’ve never even…”

The scary big commanders of the battleship they’re on give him looks that _weigh._ Raph hunches his shoulders subconsciously, wanting to escape the scrutiny.

“Perhaps not directly,” speaks a general, an even bigger lady salamander than Y’Gythgba, “but your… other self’s actions. They contributed to an already tenuous cold war. Though our people are brave and fearsome warriors, this was not a favorable outcome the negotiations breakdown. As such, in exchange for you and your crew’s freedom, pending a full pardon to your sabotage of inter-planetary matters, we expect the utmost loyalty and effort towards crushing the insect scum…”

Raph’s mind is reeling, hands clutching the table they’ve been sat at. He has to bite his tongue to stop himself from saying something that will make this all even worse.

Leo’s hand touches his shell, a gentle order to stay put. Whereas most times that would just piss him off more, Raph takes solace in having an order at all to follow. He doesn’t have to think longer on this that way.

“If we could have some time to discuss,” Leo says to the aliens, and wraps up the conversation for now. They’re not allowed to leave the hangar, but they can return to their ship.

Raph monopolizes the holodeck for hours. He makes things in it just to tear apart. Creates opponents to beat the crap out of. It’s only once he’s nearly passed out on the floor, body aching, that someone else enters.

It’s Mikey, who plops down without fuss, and cuts right to things by saying, “So, we’re goin’ to war. Hope that fancy therapy thing Donnie had ya doing last week helped some, ‘cause we got a lotta bugs to squish.”

Raph squeezes his eyes shut and only groans as Mikey pats his hand.

“Cheer up, bro. You n’ your not-girlfriend aren’t the _only_ ones who ticked off Dregg. It was a group effort, some excellent teamwork, even.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“That’s what I said.”

Raph flicks Mikey’s hand off his. Mikey sighs and rolls his eyes, further burying his own feelings on what’s happening right now. A bit of anger (at Other Raph), a bit of severe annoyance (at the Salamandrians), and maybe a little fear (of Dregg).

One of them already had a really intense shitfit today. That’s their allotted time for dramatics used up in one go. Mikey nibbles at his nailbeds and waits for Raph to get off the floor already and deal with the mess his future self made. If _Mikey_ has to, then Raph absolutely does.

…He gives his mopey, upset brother another five minutes of floor-wallowing.

-/-

Somewhere in one of the dread toned lulls in the Salamandrian-Insectoid war, Casey wanders out of their shared quarters aboard the main battleship, well past the start of their sleep cycle. The conflict they’ve been drawn into has made them all twitchier, quick to the trigger. They sleep light, even more so on a ship that’s not their own.

And since it’s just the six- seven, when Honeycutt returns from charging- of them, watching one another’s backs, the absence of even one member is felt. It’s what wakes Casey. He’s been tangled up with the brothers and April long enough by now to pick up mystic ninja bullshit, here and there.

He’s not trained by any means, but he still tracks Donnie down on a hunch. Their wayward member is using one of his fancy toys again, illuminated in the darkened hallway he’s crouched in. The images projected in hologram a mixed with text, piquing Casey’s interest as he wanders over. It’s too late an hour for them to really squabble, so he doesn’t hesitate.

“Sup?” he asks lazily, sliding down to sit next to Donnie.

“Hey,” Donnie replies, distracted red eyes fixed on the holograms. Casey waits for something further, but gets nothing.

“What’re you working on?”

“Hm? Oh. It’s…” Donnie shrugs and taps his tablet-thing, zooming out from the images and revealing they’re strung along in a line. “I couldn’t sleep, so I’m looking through my notes.”

“Notes on us?” Casey asks, peering at the pictures of their team.

“Sort of. They’re partly to document this whole experience, and mostly to figure out how this time loop is supposed to work.” Donnie worries his lip for a beat, his tooth gap scraping against cracks. He and his brothers have been looking a little sickly, Casey’s noticed. Space wars haven’t left them much time for self-care.

“And?” Casey prompts, curious.

“…And it’s not adding up,” Donnie says finally. “We keep encountering the aftermath of our future selves, when in fact we shouldn’t be? Not like this, anyway, I’m pretty sure. Quantum mechanics and relativity theory are a lot more… advanced, out here. I’m still, y’know.”

“Catching up?”

“Yeah.”

Casey rolls his eyes at Donnie’s embarrassment. So aliens have even more complicated math stuff, big deal. “Skip the nerding and get to the part about time being broken.”

“It’s not _broken,”_ Donnie says in a grumpy tone, “it’s just not making sense. At least, not with the information I’ve collected so far. If how our alternate selves told us this should work out were true, then we should follow their footsteps for now, and then go backwards in time to be the ones laying the foundation for everything leading up to when we return to earth… except it doesn’t make _sense._ ” Donnie’s eyes snap over to Casey’s, staring intently. “We’re supposed to only go back six months; that’s how long they spent in space. Six months before the Triceratons invaded earth. But the current version of us, the _us_ right this moment, here, are still heading forwards along the timeline, not _backwards._ Do you know what that means?”

“Uhhh… that we’re gonna time travel pretty soon?”

Donnie sighs, deflating. “Maybe. I don’t know. Even if we went back now, we’d miss the time limit we apparently have. We’ve been out here for over two months, Casey. They _said_ we’d only be out here for six, but if we went back to live the six before the invasion, we’d be at eight months all together…”

Casey leans on his palm, scrunching up his expression as he considers Donnie’s confusion. April would have been the better person to talk to about this; theory isn’t Casey’s strong suit, he’d rather good old practical physics experiments. Maybe some dabbling in rapid oxidization leading to combustion.

“I’m not gonna pretend I have any real solutions to this,” Casey admits, pausing to yawn at the end. “-But even if it don’t make sense right now, it’ll probably work out anyway. It’s pre-destined and shit, right?”

Donnie shakes his head. “But where does the extra time disappear to…? I just- I don’t get it. Unless we somehow lose that time in our memories, it just doesn’t work.”

Casey huffs. “Hey, if I’m gonna get hit with an amnesia-ray sometime soon, don’t spoil the surprise for me.”

“That’s a redundant statement,” Donnie mutters. “You wouldn’t _remember_ being surprised by amnesia after it happens.”

“It’s a joke, dumbass.”

“Fuck off.”

“You fuck off.” Casey jabs Donnie’s stupidly bony side, ignoring cartilage poking into his elbow. “C’mon, you’re enough of an asshole in the morning as is. Do us all a favor and go back to bed.”

Donnie looks like he’s going to fight him on it, but then he just sighs. “…Fine.”

The others are right where when Casey left. There’s only so many bunks to a room, but no one wanted to be split up, so they doubled up instead. Except for April. April, unless she decides otherwise, gets a top bunk all to herself. They have three to share, so that always leaves two for the rest.

Donnie is on the floor tonight, using the nest of blankets and stacked mattresses. It’s how he got up without anyone immediately noticing. Leo and Mikey are curled up in their Salamandrian sized bunk, an arm sprawled over the edge, a foot sticking out under the blanket. Casey would call them adorable if he didn’t know _for a fact_ that there were knives involved.

(Still kinda adorable.)

Raph opens one acid green eye, having been roused when Casey got up from their bunk. Raph looks them both over, and then closes his eye, deciding they look unharmed. Casey mumbles a goodnight to Donnie, who mumbles it back, and they both get into bed. It’s a few minutes of stillness, but then Casey hears Donnie start fiddling with something again.

He drops an arm off the edge, fingers smacking at his friend’s shell. “Dude, go to sleep. We’ll figure it out later, I swear, okay? Just… rest until then.”

“…Okay.”

Donnie puts away whatever he’d begun fiddling with. He pushes Casey’s hand away, not slaps it, which is as much of a thank you for the reassurance as he’ll say.

They don’t rest easy, but it’s still rest. The next cycle comes all too quickly.

-/-

Having such a thing as ‘relief forces’ is a strange concept. An even stranger concept is being sent to Salamandria’s western-hemisphere capitol for mandated R&R. No arguing allowed.

Not that they’d argued the vacation time; Raph argues with most things people tell him to do on principal, but not this. Even he knows when to back down (sometimes). He knows he and the rest of the team have been run ragged by this war, and it’s affecting their health. The alien planet’s environment hasn’t made that any easier to counteract.

Thank god that hot springs are a universal constant. Raph could stay here for another _week_ , basking in the heat and clean water. The built up scutes and scales that’ve been bothering him have softened, allowing for them to be scrubbed away, freeing the new ones beneath. He’s technically all done now, but has elected to not move from the vast stone pool regardless. His brothers have moved on to poking around fruit trees nearby, energized by their soak and scrub.

Turning his head slightly, Raph can see Casey napping on their pile of towels, not far from the pool’s edge. How that’s comfortable is beyond Raph, but hey, the dumbass has earned his right to sleep wherever he wants after their last mission. In order to take out the hatchery of Dregg’s soldiers, Casey just about blew himself to pieces along with it.

Idiot. Gave them all a heart attack doing that. Knowledge that Future Casey exists or not, there’d been a few moments where time stopped turning, watching the flames consume the hatchery.

“I’m sensing angsting over here,” teases a voice, as someone glides over in the shallow pool to be beside him. April’s hair is down, free-floating in the water like red seaweed, flowing over the black straps of her swimsuit. The ugly bruising on her face is faded somewhat, but the stitches along her cheek are still raw seeming.

Raph huffs, pretending he doesn’t want to smile. “Dunno what you’re talking about, O’Neil.”

April nudges him with her elbow. “The only one of you four that _doesn’t_ sit and brood like a hen is Mikey. Did he miss that lesson?”

“Probably,” Raph says, chuckling.

“Can’t wait for mine,” April continues. “Then I’ll be a certified edgelord like the rest of you.”

“Oh shut up,” Raph laughs, splashing her. April splashes him back, laughter bubbling lightly as she swims out of range. It’s easy, comfortable. Raph realizes that for all the heavy shit weighing down his thoughts, he’s just about fully relaxed for the first time in… ages.

April comes back, settling on the bench that encircles the pool. Raph submerges himself up to just under his eyes, sliding his secondary lids over them. All he can hear is the water’s calm current, April’s breathing, and the distant voices of his brothers goofing around.

It’s not long, however, before he feels a hitch in April’s breathing and she sits up. Raising his head, Raph gives her a silently questioning look.

She’s covering her face with her hands, wet hair hanging limply from her bent head. Then, she sighs loudly and pushes it all back, exposing her flushed cheeks. She catches his eye, smiling wanly.

“I think I might not need that lesson after all,” she jokes, slumping back against the wall.

“What’s eating you?” Raph asks warily. He’s not big on _emotionally comforting_ people; he’s pretty sure it’d just scare him if April started crying or something.

“Lots of things. I have a bullet list, really. Homesickness, incomplete math, my own shortcomings.” April ticks the list off with her fingers, stopping on the third. “I need a Salamandrian sword.”

“Oh, deadass?” Raph perks up. _Weapons_ he can talk about.

“My tessen and gun aren’t much good against the bugs,” April says in a disgusted tone. She points vaguely at her face, the results of her lack of defense plain to see. “I know I haven’t finished training with Splinter, but I think extenuating circumstances gives me wiggle room. Right?”

Her tone at the end is asking for his approval- for Raph to give consent for April’s breaking of tradition. Weird of her to ask him, given he’s not exactly the most rigorously devoted member of their team (that’s still Leo, will always be Leo).

“You do what you need to,” he decides upon, nodding once. April looks relieved, though Raph doesn’t think she needed permission in the first place. “You know their swords are like, bigger than Leo’s, right? How’re you gonna manage that, since you’re such a shortie.”

April kicks him underwater. “You conveniently forget that I’m taller than _you_ , so butt out. And I’m gonna see if I can’t get one sized for me, maybe even styled like a katana.”

Raph hums. Sounds pretty cool, he won’t pretend otherwise. “Good luck, dude. Get one with the weird pokers on the end, like Y’Gythgba’s?”

“The eyeball gougers?”

“Oh, ew, _that’s_ what those are?”

“Yeah? What did you think they were?”

“I don’t know- aesthetic, maybe? Jeez, you’re already gonna kill the poor bastard, why take their eyeballs?”

“I heard someone mention that it’s a popular punishment handed out in what passes as a court system in this place.”

Raph thinks of G’Throkka’s missing eye, as well as his and his family’s outstanding offenses of sabotage, and inwardly shudders. He can deal with every other type of gore, but eye stuff is just grossly over the top. Salamandrians as a whole are just- so aggressive, so severe. Raph has been described the same way, but he’s not the same level as these aliens. Not by a longshot.

(Fuck his future self or whatever for getting them into this. Fuck _space_ as a whole.)

“What’d you say about incomplete math?” Raph says curtly, changing the subject. April raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment outright.

“It’s stuff about our time travelling,” April replies. “Me an’ Donnie have been trying to put together a timeline, but it won’t add up. It’s not priority right now, obviously, but still… I keep getting a weird feeling about it.” She sighs, laying her head back. “Ugh, it’d be nice if the Kraang had made an instruction manual for my powers. ‘I have a weird feeling’ isn’t very trustworthy or scientific.”

Raph opens his mouth to reply, but something flies into it and nearly chokes him to death.

“—Who threw that?!” he demands, once he’s spat out whatever almost killed him.

Donnie, Leo, and Mikey all freeze. Donnie with an armful of fruit, Leo with his dripping sword held out, and Mikey with a messy bowl of chopped fruits. Mikey and Leo both point at Donnie, who indignantly shrieks, “ _Hey!”_

“Are they playing fruit ninja?” April asks.

“Are you playing fucking _fruit ninja?!”_ Raph shouts.

“Uhhh…” Donnie glances away nervously. “Noooo…?”

Raph’s eye twitches violently. Forget relaxing, he’s shit at relaxing. Giving a battle cry, he leaps out of the pool and runs at his brothers. Their noise jolts Casey awake, who blearily asks, _“-Fffshwhassgoinon?”_

April waves at him from the pool, smiling pleasantly, as Raph hoists Mikey over his head and chucks him back into the water.

-/-

April is trying to keep her nerves under control by sparring with her new sword. The others in the holodeck- Raph, Casey, and Mikey- are all here doing the same. They’re all impatient to make contact with earth again after so long, which ended them all getting kicked off the bridge by Leo and Donnie.

In her defense, the boys were being way bigger nuisances than she was.

“Y’know? You’re getting pretty good with that thing,” Raph says, redirecting her strike and deadlocking them.

“Thanks,” April says, smirking as she presses back against his sais. “You’re doing pretty good yourself with those.” April then slips her shimmering blade free and slashes from another angle, catching the scales of Raph’s shoulder. “But not good enough,” she crows.

Raph hisses at her, clearly wincing from the light burn she’s given him. The blade’s laser enhancements aren’t enough to act like a lightsaber or anything, but it does dole out nasty burns if she wants.

“Oh, you’re gonna _pay_ for that one, tough girl.”

_“Bring it_ , tough guy.”

They clash several more times, taking turns on offense and defense. April receives two small cuts and multiple bruises, Raph enduring much the same, before a chained scythe slices the air between them and they jump away.

“Mikey!” Raph snaps.

The kusarigama’s chain snakes almost unnaturally mid-air, following Mikey’s movements easily as he reels it back in and turns it into a swinging-slash at them both. “You guys were getting _bor-ing_ to watch,” Mikey says breezily, cheeky grin in place. “One on one is total newbie shit, we’re _way_ past that.”

April scoffs and starts to reply, but her extra senses drive her to duck on instinct and escape a sneak attack by Casey. He grins wildly at her, not discouraged by her dodge- he probably expected it, given April has refined her powers in the past months. It hasn’t escaped her notice that she did so by participating in a deadly inter-planetary war; fending off assassination attempts and scouting enemy locations, just to name a few. But hey, it’s not like that’s such a huge step after everything else they’ve faced.

(She tells herself that, same as everyone else does. It’s easier to think of the war as though it was just another skirmish. A very, very long skirmish.)

Their impromptu four-way spar is interrupted by the professor’s cheery voice on the intercom, saying, “ _Just a heads up, we’ve re-entered communications range with earth! If anyone else would like to join the call, you’d best hurry. Donatello and Leonardo seem quite eager to get things going.”_

“Oh they _better not,”_ Mikey says, smoothly transitioning from an attack to using Raph as a springboard, frog-leaping for the door. April and Casey both laugh at Raph as he hits the floor, cursing viciously.

April flips her sword grip and collapses the blade, the faint whine of its energy powering down. Tucking it into its holster on her belt, she follows after Mikey’s swift exit, Casey and Raph trailing behind her. They only stop briefly to snag bandages for her and Raph. When they enter through the bridge’s doors, they find Donnie, Leo, and Mikey waiting (impatiently), the viewpoint obscured by a large projection of what she presumes is Donnie’s computer.

“Okay cool great everyone’s here- Mikey _sit down-_ let’s get this over with.” Donnie says it all in a rush, opening a video call without another moment wasted.

“We get video this time?” April asks, coming to lean over Donnie’s shoulder.

He nods. “Yeah, I found something new in the lair’s network- he’s making another Metalhead, and it’s still open to off-planet connections, plus hooked into his laptop.”

“Because that all went so great the first time around,” Raph says not-so-quietly, earning a glare from Donnie.

“I probably only left its programming open like this so we could get in touch,” Donnie says with a sniff.

“Sure, Donnie.” Raph leans over to Casey beside him and says, “Bet you ten bucks he forgets all about this later.”

Casey laughs. “We’re gonna get amnesia at some point, so I’ll take that bet ‘cause you won’t remember I owe you.”

“We’re _what?”_

“See, Donnie says we lose time or something-”

“How do you lose _time?”_ Mikey says incredulously. “It’s _time_ , you can’t lose it.”

Donnie swivels around in his seat, saying, “I don’t know how you’ve forgotten the multiple severe panic attacks Leo’s had in the past year, but it’s a well documented symptom of PTSD and-”

“Oh look the call went through!” Leo says overly loud, putting a stop to the conversation. April meets Donnie eyes and they share a mutual moment of exasperation. Leo still refuses to get within ten feet of the subject of his own trauma, let alone anyone else’s. Same goes for everyone else, even including April and Donnie at times. April, as someone who grew up with above average knowledge on mental health, views the whole thing as a special kind of stupidity.

They’re all very, very fucked up, and it most definitely shows.

Leo gets his wish and the topic gets dropped, the video feed projected for them all sufficiently capturing their collective attention. The camera is inside Donnie’s lab, naturally, showing a scene of worse chaos than usual. Machinery, chemical vials, and god knows what else litter the tables, overshadowed by metal monstrosities in the far background.

“Hello?” Leo says, using a microphone. “Hello, Donnie? I hope you put speakers on this thing, because it’d be great if we could have a chat with you all-?”

There’s a noisy crash of metal and cursing off-screen, and then a green blur jumps into view, too close to the camera. Black goggles glare at them through the feed, a matching scowl tinted with confusion.

“ _How in the hell-?”_ Future Donnie says.

“Surprise! We hacked you!” Donnie says to his time clone, waving as he steals the microphone from Leo. “It is now just one week shy of being two full months since we last spoke with you. But you knew already that would happen, didn’t you?”

“ _Uh- yeah, yeah I did. Just forgot for a moment.”_ The goggles get pushed up and exhausted red eyes are exposed, sunk in by deep bags under them. Future Donnie opens his mouth to say something, but stops, closing it again and sighing through his nose.

April glances down at her own Donnie, a small knot of concern forming in her stomach. What does the future bring to make him look so tired?

_“I take it you’re calling again, about coming home?”_

“Why else would we call you, bruh? You’re not exactly a conversationalist,” Mikey cheeks loud enough for the mic, grinning at the glare x2 Donnie give him. Raph punches his arm and shushes him.

Leo clears his throat. “What Mikey means to say is that yes, we’re calling about when we should expect to head back to earth. It’s… been quite a while, now, and we still haven’t gone ba-”

“ _Sorry, can’t help you there,”_ Earth Donnie interrupts, leaning back in the chair he pulled over. He gives them all a pointed look. “ _You’ve all seen the same sci-fi films as we have- you know we can’t spoil future events for you without dire consequence.”_

“Oh- uh, okay.” Leo seems a bit cowed by the curt way future Donnie is speaking, so April steps in to ease the attention off him.

Sitting on the edge of the pilot chair, April plucks the microphone from Leo’s hand and brings it close. “We get it, we’re not getting a flight plan for our time jump. Can we ask about what’s been going on down on earth, though? No specifics, just general updates.”

Earth Donnie seems conflicted, eyes darting away from the camera for a few beats. Then, he shrugs. “ _I suppose if I keep it vague…”_

“How’s my family?” Casey bursts out, shoving his way into April’s space. She rolls her eyes, fondly exasperated.

“ _Doing fine, far as our Casey tells us.”_

“And my dad?” April asks next.

“ _He’s… he’s alright, if a little more stressed lately.”_ April, for a moment, gets a weird vibe. A sixth sense, psychic kind of vibe. Earth Donnie’s gaze lingers on her, guilt flickering across his expression minutely. And then it’s gone and he continues, “ _But that’s not really much of a spoiler, huh?”_

“Adjusting to being back on earth is probably going to be hard,” April agrees, smiling. She decides to let the weird vibe pass without comment; after all, if it really is important, she’ll deal with it in the future, when they’re the ones on earth again.

“ _Yeah,”_ Earth Donnie says, looking away from her, “ _maybe, maybe it’ll be hard.”_

An odd comment, but he looks so obviously tired, it’s understandable. Donnie can run with little to no sleep when he’s tinkering, sure, but his person to person communication skills plummet.

The others claim the mic- Raph asking about their other mutant friends, Mikey asking about Murakami and Leatherhead specifically, Leo inquiring about Splinter’s health, and so on. It’s not a long conversation, answered in short replies, and all too soon Other Donnie severs the connection, whiting out the projection.

There’s a handful of seconds April can practically taste the homesickness coming from them all. Her senses have expanded exponentially, empathic abilities maturing almost too fast for her to keep up. Feeling the heaviest weight of the longing, she reaches out to Leo and touches his shoulder. He looks to her, eyes betraying nothing of what he’s really feeling.

“Don’t worry,” April says quietly, while the others begin to drift from them. “We’ll be home before you know it, and then you’ll miss being out here instead. Let’s try to enjoy it while we can, okay?”

Leo is so closed off, has been for a longer time than any of them like pointing out. But April’s powers aren’t something he can hide from, and so, whether she means to or not, she _knows_ his silent yearning for home. She has it, too; the wanting for their old normalcy, even if space is vast and non-judgemental of them. At least together, they can commiserate their homesickness.

For a moment, Leo’s tension drains away. He smiles instead, a twitch of his mouth, and the near permanent steeliness in his eyes softens.

“You’re right,” he agrees, and he follows her away from the bridge easily, rejoining their team together.


	2. A1|P2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a lil fluff, and then some darker stuff.

True, undiluted sunlight is by far one of the best things in the universe. It’s a rarity that Mikey and his family have only experienced a handful of times, and never without the looming threat of danger.

It’s a little blinding, being on a planet made up largely of rolling hills, moors, and flower fields. It’s a vacation planet; a concept that is still completely wild, despite them having been to two others before. The native fauna are peaceful, wandering giants, or skittish burrowers. Initially, April had raised queries about whether or not the vacationers are infringing on the environment too heavily, but Honeycutt assured her there are way stricter conservation laws in this quadrant than on earth.

It’s a weird step away from their usual gig. Danger, fighting, living on the edge- all that sort of thing. Mikey knows he’s more prone to laziness and conflict avoidance than his siblings, but even he’s having some whiplash.

It’s nice, though. To just lay out in an endless field of little yellow flowers and nap for hours. He’s never really managed to master the skill of inner stillness- not like Leo, or their other siblings, or even April- but here? Somewhere that’s literally, utterly alien in its warm safety?

Mikey wants to think he’s getting the hang of it; letting his thoughts settle down into silence, floating between sleep and waking. That’ll be a surprise for Splinter when they get back, something that makes Mikey smile privately and proudly.

He’s still himself, though, and today isn’t a day for complete stillness. Not when Raph has come to sit nearby, radiating his own brand of restless energy. Mikey isn’t psychic, but he’s known Raph their entire lives; he can feel the harsher edges to his brother, with a slow broil of temper that’s almost always present.

“What’s up?” Mikey ventures, opening his eyes halfway. Just enough to see if Raph twitches in his direction; he shifts his position subtly, relaxing still but ready to spring away.

“This is…” Raph squints at the field around them, one that’s not too far from the resort. It’s empty except for them, the others off in the moors or back in their shared room.

“This is what?”

“It’s. Weird. Really quiet.”

“That’s why we came here, bro. Take a chill pill, rest our wings, see paradise. Get a break from craziness.”

“I _know,_ obviously,” Raph says snappishly. Mikey is way too used to it, so he doesn’t bother picking a fight about the attitude. “It’s just- super weird, okay? It’s _too_ quiet. Where’s the downside? What’s the catch?”

“There is none, Fugitoid said so.”

“Mikey. You know as well as I do that _nothing_ ever goes easy for us. We don’t get to have paradise or whatever other crap.”

Mikey stares at the sky instead of his scowling brother. Ugh, he hates admitting it, even privately, but Raph has a point. A depressing, pessimistic point.

“What if this is the one exception?” Mikey asks. “Even Leo is mellowed out, and he’s been stuck in fight or flight mode for like, a year and a half.”

“…Yeah. I know. It’s good for him. The others, too.”

Mikey traces the edge of the horizon, watching the distant clouds that won’t reach them today. It’s so nice here. Perfect like a picture. It helps with the night terrors, jolting him out of scenes of the war they’re just a few weeks fresh from. Barely two, now.

“I like this sky,” Mikey comments idly. The refraction on this planet makes it a pale lavender, turning deep red at sunset.

“It’s okay,” Raph says- sulks, really. He’s being so moody; has always been moody, it feels like. But Mikey knows that’s not true, because there were more good days before they were drafted by Salamadria. Plus… everything else they’ve dealt with, in what now seems like such a short period, when it’d been years.

“I still miss earth’s, though.”

“Yeah.”

“Proper New York pizza, too. I can’t ever get the texture right out here.”

“Yeah.”

“You still thinking about Y-girl and them?”

“Y-” Raph’s teeth click as he bites down on his answer. He glares at Mikey. “Dirty trick.”

Mikey shrugs, unapologetic. “Where’s your head today, dude? Is it the other-you and her’s relationship thing, or is it the guerilla warfare missions thing?”

“…The second one.”

Two things most often working Raph up are polar opposite at first glance, but they’re tied to the same source trigger. His other self- the future/previous actions they’ll all take. Fighting they’re familiar with (far beyond familiar at this point, it’s ground into them, it’s in their _bones_ ) but relationships? That’s a total mystery for all four of them.

Mikey doesn’t blame Raph for being a little (a lot) fucked up over having had a relationship with someone he, from what he’s told them, isn’t attracted to at all. But that’s a dilemma for another lazy day.

“You know there’s no way anyone could sneak up on you right now, right?” Mikey raises a hand and waves languidly at the acres of treeless grassland. “I’d totally catch ‘em even if they had cloaking or shit. How many times have you guys snuck up on me in the past months? Zero. How many times have I snuck up on you?”

Raph huffs, looking away from him and not answering. Mikey can see the hint of a smile, though.

“The answer is fifteen,” he supplies sweetly.

“Fuck off,” Raph says, but he’s not sitting like he’s ready to bolt anymore. His hands aren’t far from his weapons, but hey, none of them walk around without their gear. That’d just be asking for karma to shank them from behind.

And since Mikey isn’t interested in poking the tiger any further, he lets that be the end of the conversation. Raph is no longer harshing him with bad vibes, so it’s cool, the Incredible Sulk has been mollified. Mikey can get back to napping, and Raph can stay or go, whatever, he’s not Mikey’s responsibility.

Raph doesn’t leave. He doesn’t try to talk any more, either. They sun themselves for another while, until noise drawing closer wakes them both with full-body flinches. It’s just Casey, though. Casey riding one of the five-metre-tall creatures that wander the planet, with Donnie and April hanging off its side on a length of rope. Leo is running after the trio, a fair distance behind due to the long gait of the giraffe-horse alien.

“Can’t leave them alone for damn second,” Raph mutters, lying back down and choosing to ignore the calamity. Mikey is satisfied with how much nap he’s gotten, so he remains sitting up, laughing as Casey tries- and fails- to take control of the creature. Donnie, April, and Leo’s shouting can be heard all the way across the field, sending swathes of oversized butterflies fleeing into the air.

-/-

They rest, they recover, they adventure further through the galaxy- Donnie skips sleep cycles just to keep up with recording everything he can. He can’t learn _everything_ at the pace he’s discovering, but if he stores it for later, he’ll have months of research material to study.

And though he’s always hungry for more, to see and do and learn _more,_ Donnie can admit that he’s… tiring. By now, he’d have crashed and slept for days in a row. But in space he doesn’t have time for that; his thoughts don’t rest, so his body can’t either. There’s so much for him to catch up on, almost to the point where he feels like he’s drowning in unfamiliar knowledge. It’s not an experience he’s ever had before, and it isn’t a pleasant one.

Maybe he should cut his brothers some slack, next time he gets frustrated that they don’t know something he does. If Donnie let someone weasel it out of him, he’d describe himself as feeling... very small, in the eyes of the universe. Just a backwater planet resident, who’s never been to a proper school, whose own advancements can’t even begin to compare to lightspeed travel.

The melancholy for his own uneducated mind distracts him thoroughly. It’s nearly enough to make him completely forget Salamandria’s war, the things he saw and did in order to achieve the missions they ran with Y’Gythgba and G’Throkka.

What it doesn’t distract him from, however, is the growing desire to return home from the whole team. Professor Honeycutt’s ship might be home away from home, but it’s not the _lair,_ it’s not the tunnels beneath New York. It’s pristine and beautifully structured and so _clean_ , so much nicer. It has everything they could want or need, and some cycles Donnie can’t shake the feeling of being an intruder.

No. They love the ship, they love their newfound freedom, but they miss home. Dirty, dank, dark home. Where they have the homefield advantage and there’s not a single street or tunnel they don’t know.

Donnie misses Splinter, too, of course. He might not be as close to their father as his brothers, but he misses the scent of incense which Splinter burns, the click of his cane as he goes for his midnight stroll, the gentle tap of tail to Donnie’s ankle during training, a silent correction or praise. For however little he and his father have in common, they’re still family.

(He doesn’t miss nightly training, however. The competition of them, the hurt feelings at least _one_ person leaves with. No, Donnie can’t say he misses the often-uncomfortable atmosphere of the dojo.)

Donnie wishes he could solve the riddle their future selves have written for them. He’s gone through the formula and timeline over and over, attempting to figure out how it’ll all align in the end. Probably a fruitless task, but he’s a worrier. It’s his nature to pick apart everything he can in order to understand it.

Hence why he’s just spent the last hour taking apart and reassembling a weapon Mikey found (read: stole) during their last planetside stop. Donnie is certain it’ll work fine… and that there’s only a 10% chance of its miniature core exploding.

To avoid wrecking his bunker (again), he’s come to the holodeck. It’s already occupied as he steps in, however. Blade shriek against each other as two swift footed opponents face off on tatami mats, dancing in a circle in the dojo.

Donnie has a moment of swooping homesickness, seeing a room he all but grew up in, even more so than his lab. The door shuts behind him as he stands, somewhat stunned, while April and Leo continue their spar.

“Donnie!” April exclaims breathlessly, attention shifting for a split second. Then Leo dashes at her and she’s refocusing.

“Are you two almost done?” Donnie asks, keeping to the sides of the room so he’s not minced to pieces. “I have something I need a target for, and I’d rather not hit either of you.”

“That’d just be another challenge,” Leo quips boldly. “Practice, even! For when we’re shot at again.”

“Not if it blows you up.”

Leo stutters half a step. “Ah.”

“Stop bringing bombs onto the ship, Donnie!” April scolds.

Donnie shrugs. “It wasn’t a bomb _initially,_ I swear. Blame Mikey for giving it to me if anything.”

“I’m pretty sure I grounded you both from this kind of thing,” Leo says, side-glancing his way.

“You did,” Donnie says mildly. “We didn’t listen. You can’t ground us, Leo. We’re the same age.”

“I’m team leader.”

“You got voted out last Uno night, remember? Casey’s left sneaker is still team leader.”

“I-” Leo starts to say, but swallows his words as April catches his leg and flips him on his back.

“Ha!” April cheers, brandishing her Salamandrian forged blade in victory. “That’s three for me, _zip_ for you.”

“You cheated!” Leo protests, getting up. “I was taking care of an insubordination!”

April just smirks cheekily, brushing her sweaty bangs out of her face. “You know the saying, all’s fair in love and war. Now say it.”

Leo grimaces deeply. “No.”

“Sore loser! Say it, you swore on the wager.”

“Say what?” Donnie asks, bemused by Leo’s mortification and April’s mercilessness.

April points her teal sword at Leo, expression serious even as her lips twitch towards a grin. “You swore on Captain Ryan’s name, coward. You can’t back out now.”

Leo glares at her, and then sighs loudly. “Fine… you’re the Hamato Clan’s... y’know.”

“I’m sorry? I’m the _what?”_ April eggs.

Leo grumbles, and finally bursts out, “You’re the Hamato Clan’s best swordsman! There, happy?”

April giggles wildly. Donnie loses it too, unable to keep composure at Leo’s severely annoyed mood.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Leo warns, pointing at April with a threatening finger. “I’ll beat you _four_ to zip before the week is out.”

“Pssh, bring it on. I’ll beat you with one hand tied behind my back.”

“Pride comes before the fall, remember.”

“What, like you did two minutes ago-?”

“Not that this isn’t terribly funny,” Donnie interjects, stopping the cycle of banter before it can spiral, “but I have a shiny new gun to test out, which I’d like to get to so I’m confident it won’t explode.”

April sticks out her tongue at him, giddy from the spar still. Leo gives him a long-suffering look, saying, “God, I miss earth. You guys weren’t half as disrespectful back there.”

“What dimension were you living in?” Donnie snarks.

“One where you said please and thank you occasionally and didn’t bring _bombs_ home every time we went shopping.”

“You’re right. I’d _make_ the bombs at home, not buy them.”

“I thought Mikey stole that one?” April questions.

“Eh, same difference honestly.”

“Not really,” Leo grumbles. He rolls his eyes. “I swear, it sometimes feels like we’ll never catch up in the timeline and go home. Living on a small space ship with you makes a cycle feel like a tri-cycle.”

“Ooh, space lingo, how hip,” Donnie teases. “Shut up, it’s not like you’re any better. You’re just as insufferable as the rest of us.”

“No wonder our future selves don’t want us to come home,” Leo gripes back.

“…Guys,” April says quietly.

“Love you too, asshole. Now get out of the way so I don’t shoot you- Splinter wouldn’t like it if we came home without you.”

“ _Guys.”_

“What?” Donnie says, same as Leo. Looking to April for the first time in a bit, Donnie is taken aback at the paleness of her features. She’d been flushed with mirth and exertion; now she’s a shade too close to bone white and her freckles stand out like red inkblots.

“That’s it,” she says, horrified, a realization coming over her. “I couldn’t sense it because we haven’t been speaking in person, but- oh god, the missing time, there _isn’t any,_ they- h- how _could they?!”_

“April?” Donnie asks, moving quickly to her side. Leo is there a second before him, tentatively touching April’s hand.

“They lied,” April says, raising her eyes to his. The light blue of them shines with grief, slowly turning to fury.

“Who did?” Leo asks, all his grouchy humor gone, replaced by the cold steel he’s honed to the point.

“ _We did,”_ April hisses, abruptly angry, simmering with fire. “Our future selves- or whatever they are, they _lied_ to us. It’s why the timeline doesn’t line up; it’s why they keep telling us to stay away. Donnie, it’s why the other you is so evasive about answering anything!”

“No, he- they- I wouldn’t do that,” Donnie insists, disturbed on a fundamental level. He wouldn’t force his family to be nomads in space, he _wouldn’t._

“I know,” April assures him, hand clutching his. “But he would. He _is.”_ She looks to Leo, mouth downturned. “They all are. They know we’re being lied to, probably right from the start, when they came back in time to stop the invasion.”

“Wait, this isn’t making any sense,” Leo says, and for all the extra hours of training he does, he still sounds tremulous, ever so slightly. “It’s a time loop, we’ve _done_ time travel before. If we really went back in time and disrupted things that badly, _we_ right now would’ve just disappeared, right? Like last time, with Splinter’s clan home.”

April bites her lip. Donnie’s thoughts are spinning, colliding together as things slot into place. April’s points are believable, at least to him. Her intuition is the best of any of them; she’s hell to play poker against and she’s practically _never_ wrong about a hunch.

“What if… it’s different,” Donnie says, speaking as the thought forms. “What if going back to a time when you’re still alive doesn’t erase the extras? What if there’s just… _two sets,_ shoved into the same timeline.”

“But shouldn’t our memories change?” Leo insists, distressed. “Shouldn’t something actually _happen_ to show that the timeline got changed?”

“I don’t know,” Donnie admits grimly. He hates not knowing all the details; it creates variables he can’t calculate. “But I do know that there’re people back on earth wearing our faces, living our lives. We have to go home.”

“We can’t let them know we’re onto them,” April adds. “If they really are lying to us like I think, then we shouldn’t tip them off before we do some recon. They could… hurt someone. Someone we’re close to.”

Leo looks shocked for a second, like the idea hadn’t even occurred to him. “But- they wouldn’t, they’re _us…_ right?”

“They stole our lives, Leo,” Donnie says. “I think it’s safe to say at this point, they’re willing to do things that we aren’t.”

Leo has the same flash of grief that April had, but it’s covered once more by the steely cowl of being their leader. He lets out a breath, fists clenching before he looks them both in the eye.

“Call a team meeting. The Fugitoid, too. We need to inform the others, and see if that robot is trustworthy still.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [pivots on my heel and strikes a pose] i am so godforsakenly tired.


	3. ACT TWO: INVESTIGATION OF THE FALSE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> surprise! double update bc i've been too busy to post lately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is act two!
> 
> :)

Mikey isn’t a pessimistic person. He’s just suspicious enough to keep himself alive, just paranoid enough to stay safe, and he still manages to look for a bright side to a situation. Maybe it’s time he changes that. Maybe it’s time they start looking for a dark side to every situation.

“You gotta admit,” Mikey says, defaulting to humor as they stand around the bridge, “this is a new one, even for us.”

“Mikey, shut up,” Raph hisses. “This is a serious problem.”

Mikey rolls his eyes. Yeah, no duh it’s a problem. It’s worse than any betrayal made by former-allies-turned-enemies: it’s _them,_ they betrayed _themselves._ How’s that for a headfuck?

“I’m lost,” Casey says, idly knocking his hockey stick against his foot. “Why can’t we just go in and beat their asses, exactly?”

“We don’t have all the information,” Donnie replies, arms crossed, expression tight. “They look and act like us, but we only have their word to go on about their true identities and their supposed time travel.”

“Actually,” pipes up Honeycutt, “I can confirm that they did indeed time travel. Such an event leaves a very distinct fingerprint, so to say. If you need, I could show you the recording the ship took at the time of our meeting?”

“Later, but yes, thank you,” Donnie says. Then, he sighs. “Well, that still doesn’t confirm their identities. Just that they’re not from _here_.”

“Maybe we got body-snatched in the future,” Mikey jokes in a drawl. He sniggers. “Trust no one, not even yourself.”

Raph growls and takes a step in his direction. Leo doesn’t even have to look as he puts out a hand to stop their brother. “Mikey,” Leo warns in a serious tone. He’s doing his leader voice again. “I realize this is a stressful situation, but keep it together for the meeting, okay?”

Stressed? He’s not stressed. Mikey is freaking the fuck out. That’d be _panicking,_ not stressing, oh leader. Mikey bites down on the smarmy reply and smiles, bouncing on his feet and trying not to break. He’s been tortured, drugged, survived in isolation- he can hold it together for another ten, twenty minutes.

(Of course, those instances he was alone and no one else was in danger. Funny, he’s always considered himself someone who only gets surface-attached to people. The idea of someone with his face, his voice, his moves- spending time with Leatherhead, Murakami, Mondo, _Splinter…_ haha, so funny that it’s only right now he realizes how unbelievably scared he is for them.)

“We need to gather intel,” Leo says, moving on. “Minimize the chances of error. Once we’ve done that, we’ll figure out the next step. Whether that’s to attack or to make peaceful contact will be up to them and whatever they’ve been doing on earth.” He pauses, glancing around. “Anyone have a comment or suggestion?”

Casey makes a disgruntled sound and raises his hand. “Yeah, I got one. If other-me’s done _anything_ to my dad n’ sister… I’m not gonna wait for you guys to make a plan. Warning you ‘bout that now.”

“Same here,” Raph bites out, arms crossed tightly, like he’s holding himself back. Mikey’s pretty sure that’s exactly what he’s doing, actually. “I’m not gonna have patience for any complicated bullshit plans.”

“Oh for god’s sake,” Donnie says acidly, glaring. “Have you two learned _nothing_ about rushing in, guns blazing? Do you _want_ this to blow up in our faces?”

Raph snarls wordlessly and Casey’s expression darkens. It’s been a fair while since the three of them had such a severe argument; Mikey has a weird sense of nostalgia for a better/worse time in their lives.

Thankfully, as she nearly always does, April intervenes to break up the budding fight. “Uh, hello? We have bigger problems than this, c’mon.” She moves to stand closer to Leo, center of the group and between the argument’s two sides. “We can’t do either of those things until we’re actually on earth, and besides, you three aren’t going to be making any of the planning decisions, so chill out and let us give you a rundown.”

“Um, excuse me?” Raph says incredulously.

“Psychic intuition,” April says, gesturing to herself, “and combat strategy.” A gesture to Leo. “We need you four still, obviously, but remember that string of missions we did with Y’Gythgba? The liberation of occupied territories?”

Mikey nods, along with everyone else. Those, out of all the missions they’d done for the Salamandrians, had gone nearly according to plan; the success of each raid on Dregg’s outposts bolstering their morale. Come to think of it, Leo and April _had_ sat with G’Throkka and Y’Gythgba for hours prior to them shipping out…

He zones out, going through memories and what-ifs rather than focusing on their latest moment of peril. The tension in the room is stifling, too many people are close to snapping- Mikey turns his eyes to the viewpoint instead and stares at the stars. His feelings about the Salamandrian war are mixed. When they’d first been told about what their future selves(?) did, he’d thought _Well that’s not our problem._ The concept of an entire planet at war just didn’t register; he couldn’t connect to it, especially given it wasn’t _them_ who’d had anything to do with it.

But then Y’Gthygba showed them what it was like planetside, what had happened to her hometown and hundreds of other cities. It got very, very real at that point, until Mikey took a metaphorical step back and distanced himself again.

He fought, sure, but a part of him never got invested. Not like Raph, struggling with secondhand consequences, or Donnie and April, who still somehow have room to sympathize with strangers. So long as Mikey keeps his distance, his thoughts don’t go scattered and his hands stay steady. He does it because everyone else is doing it, not because he has a stake in things.

He doesn’t get scared if he doesn’t get attached. He can still laugh instead of cry if he goes with the flow and doesn’t cling to anything. “ _I don’t_ really _care,”_ is what he’ll tell himself, and then he stops caring, so nothing sticks to him.

Really sucks that now they have an enemy that can reach into all the cracks Mikey’s hidden the things he _does_ care about. It doesn’t make him angry, not like it is with the others. It just makes him afraid. It makes him want to distance himself again, even if it feels wrong. _So not even these things? We can’t have even just this? Okay._

Idly, Mikey thinks of the bug aliens he’d pop the heads off of, crushing exoskeleton underfoot as he moved onto the next. He wonders if he’ll have to do that with their clones.

“Mikey?” Leo’s voice asks, and Mikey is somewhat surprised to find Leo right next to him and everyone else gone to their bridge seats.

“How similar d’you think carapace is to exoskeleton?” Mikey asks without forethought. Leo’s expression screws up in confusion. Mikey manages a grin at that. “Asking for a friend,” he chirps.

“I… wouldn’t know?” Leo says. He shakes his head. “Mikey, please. Did you listen to anything we talked about?”

“Ehhh… what part did you want me to pay attention to?”

Leo sighs, biting out, “ _All_ of it, Mikey,” in the typical tone of frustration Mikey hears from his brothers when they lose patience with him. Mikey just hums and stares, waiting, picking at the underside of his overgrown nails and thinking about cartilage and his very few best friends and the angle he needs to behead something.

“…You’ll be our scout, with me as backup,” Leo relents, too tired for an argument about this. “I’ll go through the plan’s steps with you once we get closer to earth, okay? Please try to stay with us this time, too.”

“Mhm, sure thing.” Nunchakku because it’s earth again, non-confrontational info gathering, in and out probably within a time limit, total stealth mode if possible to avoid their clones. Easy peasy lemon squeezy- Mikey doesn’t need a step by step to do those things, but if it makes everyone else feel better, then sure, he’ll listen to Leo give him a summary.

Leo gives him a measured look, eyes glancing to how Mikey has begun peeling his cuticles. “You good?” Leo asks, quiet, because he hates discussing it when any of them get Like This. Better to repress, repress, repress, right?

“Gooder than good,” Mikey says, because that’s what he almost always says, and it’s the only answer Leo can handle right now. Later, later. When this is resolved and April’s freaky empath magics tell her they’re all disasters inside, when they’ll have the lair back and a couch to collapse on and everything can go back to normal.

The trip to earth takes ten eternities- one for each nailbed Mikey wrecks.

-/-

New York City. Big, loud, smelly, _home._

The air tastes filthy. Muggy heat is still cooling from the rooftops they travel over. Windows to apartments are left open, the noises of evening television, family dinners, and loud roommate disagreements pouring out from each.

It’s home. It’s _home._ Leo slows halfway to just stop and bask in the rightness of it all. Space is beautiful, it’s terrifying, it’s accepting of what he looks like and who he is. But nowhere else in the universe is there a city quite like NYC, with its crowded population and chaotic activity.

And someone is trying to take that from them.

Leo seals up his bittersweet homesickness, putting it away so his mind stays sharp. They have an objective, he can’t allow for distraction… even if Mikey doesn’t want to share that seriousness, the way he’s been darting in and out of Leo’s awareness. Two blocks back Mikey disappeared, and now he’s back, holding a paper plate with a wide slice of pizza on it.

“Where did you get that?” Leo asks, though he should know better than to question by now.

“Terrace birthday party,” Mikey says happily, and then bites into the slice, shoving half of the whole thing into his mouth and barely chewing before swallowing. “Oh _man,_ baby,” he groans, “I have missed you.”

Leo maintains his disapproval for another beat. Then, he caves. “Gimme a bite of that.”

“Get your own,” Mikey says, going for another giant bite. They have a brief scuffle over the slice. Leo gets a bruised cheek but wins a decent bite of the crust and some cheese. Mikey hisses and scolds, holding him in a pin while he gobbles up the rest, but Leo is satisfied (and tired) enough to just lie there, savoring the taste.

“ _Nice to see you’re both focusing on the mission,”_ Donnie’s voice says from their phone’s speakers. Leo looks skyward and sees the small drone hovering nearby, lens aimed down at them.

“You’re just _jeeeealous,”_ Mikey singsongs as he licks his fingers. The irritated grumble Donnie makes is evidence that the needling comment hits home.

“ _You’re lucky this thing doesn’t come with a peashooter,”_ Donnie says. “ _And please get a move on already? Raph and I are in a contest right now.”_

“What contest?” Leo asks.

“ _To see who can last the longest before one of us throws the other off the ship. Or, which of us resists throwing Casey off the longest.”_

“ _Fuck off!”_ says Casey’s distant, irate voice, and Leo rolls his eyes. The only times they collectively manage to get along seems to be when they’re in life-threatening danger, or half-asleep after a movie marathon to avoid sleeping.

“Lmao,” Mikey laughs. Leo sighs long-sufferingly and kicks his brother off of him.

Reaching their favorite point of entry to the sewers, Leo has a flash of déjà vu. Of them returning, after driving the Kraang out of New York. He shakes off the feeling and ignores the parallels his thoughts want to make.

“Donnie, are you still hacked into their text messages?” Leo asks, taking his phone off speaker and putting it to his ear slit.

“ _Yep. No change in the plan. Is Mikey ready to go?”_

“Born ready,” Mikey boasts under his breath into his own phone, eyes fixed on the street below. Leo is relieved that Mikey- their only way in, currently- has corralled his sporadic energy into mission mode. Maybe the excruciating week their party lost contact with G’Throkka and Mikey, in the middle of No Man’s Land no less, were good for something (besides giving Leo new nightmares).

“ _Estimated time of departure within ten minutes. Give him at least a two minute gap to move out of range.”_ A pause, and then Donnie adds, _“Good luck in there, Mikey.”_

Mikey thanks him and then hangs up. Leo watches Mikey turn off his phone completely, slipping it away into his old belt’s pouches. They’re both without the new gear they’d picked up in space; trying their best to blend in, should someone spot them.

It’s strange to be without the weight of their life-support equipment, or their translators tucked against their ear slits. The conflicting senses of familiarity and alienation don’t mesh well in Leo’s mind, though he maintains his calm.

The tense moments following are spent in relative silence. The only sound is made by Mikey, who fidgets in multiple minute ways. Leo isn’t bothered by the behavior; his brother has always been like this. Still, it’s a relief when Donnie picks up the line again and says to Leo, “ _I’ve got movement a block over from your position.”_

Hunkering down further- Mikey following suit before Leo even signals- they hide as a figure appears on a rooftop not far from them. Leo, though he’s aware of exactly what’s happening right now, still has a bizarre moment of instinctive confusion. Mikey is right beside him, still as stone and hardly breathing. It shouldn’t be possible for Mikey to also be gracefully leaping between lampposts and terraces, heading the opposite direction from them.

Donnie’s little scout drone zips off and out of sight, pursuing the doppelganger. They wait, remaining hidden and silent.

“ _You’re clear,”_ Donnie says exactly two minutes later.

“Showtime,” Leo says to Mikey, who grins, all teeth and sharp excitement.

 _“Showtime,”_ Mikey echoes him, and then he’s gone, not a whisper to his descent from the roof. Leo still finds himself pleasantly surprised by Mikey’s ability to just _disappear,_ even after coming to respect and acknowledge that ability _._ He’s watching the entire time, and even still, there’s a split second where he can’t see his brother. He finds him again as Mikey pops the manhole cover and drops down in the same fluid movement.

“He’s in the tunnels,” Leo reports to Donnie. He checks the sky, looking for the second drone Donnie no doubt has stationed. He can’t find it, but that’s no cause for concern.

“ _Starting countdown. You reminded him that he only has fifteen minutes, right?”_

Ah. Whoops. Leo inwardly winces, displeased by his own misstep.

“…Yes,” he lies, assuring himself Mikey has been told plenty of times already. Leo gets criticism from his team for being neurotic, or micromanaging, or whatever else- but it’s _Donnie,_ really, who does those things… more frequently than Leo, anyway.

“ _Hm,”_ Donnie says.

Leo doesn’t respond in turn; the open line between them goes quiet again as they play their roles in the mission. With Mikey underground, a drone watching the other Mikey, and Leo in position, now all that’s left to do is… wait.

-/-

A left, a right, drop down a level, find the hidden latch Splinter made and Donnie improved, slip into the old subway tunnels, take the first and second right turns, follow the left the rest of the way…

Mikey could walk this route with his eyes closed. Has, actually. At least three times; once for training, when they were all really little, and another two times out of boredom. He knows every cranny in these tunnels, knows exactly when the identical looking aging stones give way to newer ones. For a secret lair, they sure have had a lot of unwelcome visitors find their way to their doorstep.

Mikey slows to a stop, hovering out of sight from the broad entrance into his lifelong home. He stares at the spots he remembers helping patch up; hours spent gathering materials and then applying them. Family bonding activity, sort of. Lots of arguing about who needed to do what, grout wasted in scuffles, the sting of their sensei’s cane when things got out of hand… the usual Hamato clan dynamic.

Mikey rubs the back of his neck, sighing. It wasn’t fun per say, but there were good moments. Enough that he feels happy to see the lair, even under these circumstances.

His heartrate is steady, adrenaline carefully suppressed. Picking up a casual, unhurried gait, Mikey infiltrates the enemy base with the easiest disguise he’s ever worn.

Everything is exactly as he remembers it… minus some chunks from the ceiling, and a little of the wall to Donnie’s lab, which is partially covered by tarp. Huh. Wonder what happened there.

Mikey drops his gaze back down, surveying the lair’s common room and its occupants. The high, arching walls are as dark as ever, still coated in a faint sheen of algae. Couches, TV, game system and VHS/DVD player- yep, all there. A single enemy operative sits on the couch, legs crossed and reading a comic volume that’s almost definitely Mikey’s.

Acid green eyes slide over to meet his, bored and relaxed. “Forget something?” Raph says- or, Alt Raph, actually. Someone who looks like Mikey’s brother, but isn’t really Raph at all. Mikey frowns; he’s going to confuse himself in his own head at this rate. He dubs this Raph as _Raphael_ , because they only get called their full names when they’re in trouble, and everyone here is in _so_ much trouble.

“Uh, hello? Earth to Mikey? You need something or are you gonna get outta my face?”

Mikey clicks back with reality’s present. Ah. “Nah,” he says, picking up his stroll again. “Mondo just texted an’ said he’ll be late by a bit. Figured I’d grab a snack before I head out.”

Raph rolls his eyes, going back to his comic with a muttered comment of, “ _-thought fuckin’ Leo was the space cadet.”_ Mikey smiles blithely and wanders further in, still utterly undetected. Man, he’s definitely going to suggest codewords when he gets back to the ship. With two sets of themselves running around the universe, he’d have thought the identity thieves would be a little more paranoid about this scenario.

Oh well, it’s their loss. This is all the easier for him because of that hole in their defenses.

To avoid arousing suspicion, Mikey does slip into the kitchen and nick himself an apple. Nice and crunchy; although Honeycutt’s ship does good imitations, there’s just a difference between organic and synthetic foods. Exiting once he’s finished, Mikey moves onto the prime directive: gather intel on the Alt versions of Leo, Raph, and Donnie.

Raphael hasn’t moved from his spot, so Mikey ghosts up the stairs into the bedroom hall. All the rooms are empty, with no obvious clues to anything important. Back out and across the common room, ignoring the glance Raphael shoots him. Mikey feels the pressure mount, aware that he’ll be questioned sooner or later on why he’s ducking in and out of every room.

Peeking into Donatello’s lab, Mikey this time takes absolute care to be unseen. While Raphael and the common room have no evident changes, Donatello’s lab as a whole has shifted around, as it tends to, like it’s a living thing. Mikey slips his phone out and turns off the flash, hiding out of sight as he documents all the inventions Donatello has been working on. The turtle in question is currently occupied with a revamped glider, head bent over his soldering, his welding mask limiting his vision thoroughly.

Mikey pretends he doesn’t feel his heart beating just a little quicker, keeping out of Donatello’s limited sightline. Of all their alternates, Donatello poses the greatest threat. Being the only one to keep in regular contact with them, he has knowledge of the differences between each set. Donatello could potentially blow this whole mission.

 _Scary, scary, scary._ Hopefully, the typical hyperfocus of a Donatello will prevent that.

Mikey takes as much of a risk he can before cutting his losses and slipping back out. He got a decent number of pictures of stuff he doesn’t recognize; Donnie should be able to work with that. That’s another task checked off his list. Time to wrap up the last two: find Leonardo, find Splinter, gather any important intel about them he’s able to.

It’s pretty obvious where to find them. There are no sounds of fighting behind the paper walls of the dojo, but that’s not a true tell. Mikey curls his fingers to the edge of the door, a faint twinge of pain from each sore nailbed, scabs stinging as miniscule cracks form. The door slides open, letting the warm light of the dojo fall over him.

Leonardo is alone inside, moving in slow steps, posture perfect, relaxed. Tai Chi. Mikey’s Leo does it occasionally, to help with his bad knee. Sometime Mikey even joins him. But not tonight, not with this Leo.

Mikey evaluates Leonardo- like Raphael, he can note a few scars that don’t match up with Mikey’s versions of them. Donatello is presumed to have the same, although he didn’t get close enough to see.

“Weren’t you going out?” Leonardo says in a vaguely annoyed tone, having noticed Mikey’s blatant staring.

“Soon,” Mikey says, stepping inside and shutting the door behind himself. Leonardo elects to ignore his presence, turning to face the wall as he continues his Tai Chi. Another advantage for Mikey’s investigation. If he didn’t have bigger priorities, Mikey might actually be a little insulted at how easily he’s been dismissed by his not-siblings. Or maybe he and his not-self are just that similar? Who knows. Whatever. Investigating time.

Mikey’s eyes skim along the dojo’s walls and racks; familiar photos hung where they’ve always been, a few new gouges in the wall, a handful of weapons rearranged. Nothing of concern. He looks to the far back wall, the one that separates their father’s room. Approaching it with mild trepidation- Mikey is wary of being scolded for snooping in Splinter’s space- he cautiously pulls the sliding door open.

The first thing he notices is dust.

There’s a thin but noticeable layer of it on everything. It stirs when the door is opened, sending particles spinning up into the thin streams of light Mikey’s let in. Somewhat confused, he looks around at the room. A robe is haphazardly left on a chair in the corner, something Splinter would return to wash later. The futon is neatly folded up and put against the wall, as is his nightly routine. An empty, dusty glass sits next to an open newspaper on the low sitting table, the crossword partially filled out and an ashtray nearby, a half-smoked cigarette on its edge.

It looks as though Splinter has just stepped out for an evening walk. But… in the corner, next to the chair and robe, is his cane.

Huh.

Mikey feels something unsettling sweep over him, like a gentle but cold breeze.

“Mikey!” Leonardo exclaims, displeased. “Get out of there, you know it’s off limits!”

“Sorry,” Mikey says on reflex, taking an unsteady step backwards. “I just- I was looking for…” He trails off, catching the gleam of glass. A picture frame. Recent incense is still burning, wisps of smoke drifting off the tips. A small meal is set at the foot of the altar, delicate portions left in offering.

Burgundy eyes gaze peacefully from within the frame of their photo. They bore into Mikey as he struggles to process what he’s looking at.

A hand touches his shoulder, making Mikey jolt and break away. Leonardo blinks at him, frowning. “Are you okay, Mikey?” he asks, standing so close to the altar, not even glancing at it. Why is he so calm? Leo always had the closest relationship with their father, how can he be-?

“Mikey?” Leonardo prompts again, beginning to reach out. Mikey steps back, further away.

“I- it’s nothing, just, was zonin’ out,” Mikey manages with a thick tongue, thoughts reeling. His heart constricts as he tries to keep it together, tries to hold back the horror building in his chest.

The dojo’s door rattles as he throws it open with too much force, startling Raphael on the couch and eliciting a shout from Leonardo. Mikey grips the frame, nails ripping into the thin paper as his head swirls.

“What the hell?” Raphael says, standing from the couch.

“Where’s Splinter?” Mikey blurts stupidly, numbness crawling its way up his spine, slowing his thoughts. “He’s- he left his walking stick, he needs it.”

Raphael’s brow furrows, frowning deeper. “You hit your head or something?” he asks, coming towards the stairs as Mikey stumbles down them.

“No,” Mikey says, eyes darting for any sign of the tall shadow that’s always stalked their home, listening for the faint rasp of a tail along the ground. “Where is he, Raph?”

“Mikey, Mikey what’s wrong?” Leonardo calls again, hurrying down the stairs to join them. Mikey, again, keeps himself out of range from both of them, breathing stuttering, mind sluggish.

“Something’s wrong with _him,”_ Raphael says with no little amount of distaste. He’s abruptly _in Mikey’s space,_ tapping a finger against his skull. “Hello? Space cadet dumbass? What’d you do to yourself this time?”

“Nothing!” Mikey snaps, slapping the offending hand away. His reaction surprises Raphael for a beat, then his expression darkens.

“If I go ask Donnie if he’s got anything missin’ from his fridge,” Raphael warns, “is he gonna check and say yes?”

 _“Raph,”_ Leonardo says shortly, stepping between them. “Whatever’s happened, this won’t help us fix it.”

Raphael scoffs. “You’re being soft on him.”

“This isn’t a matter that should be addressed carelessly.”

“I’m not! A good jolt and he’ll be back to normal- normal as Mikey ever is, anyway.”

“That may be, but-”

“Where is he?” Mikey interrupts, raising his voice as their attention turns back to him. Neither answer right away, and Mikey snarls, _“Where the fuck is he?”_

“Totally gave himself another head injury,” Raphael says to Leonardo, like Mikey’s not even _here._

“Raphael, please,” Leonardo says.

“What?” Raphael gestures at Mikey sharply. “Not my fault he forgot his own fuckin’ _dad_ died.”

Mikey’s thoughts finally go completely numb. Everything in him grinds to a halt, the caustic words settling over him.

“What?” he asks, hardly hearing himself.

Raphael shakes his head. “I’ll get Donnie; watch dumbass here so he doesn’t hurt himself again.” Leonardo sighs and agrees, Raphael leaving them to go get their only doctor on hand. Mikey stares and stares and stares at nothing, trying to find his footing as his entire world tilts sideways.

“You know what? I’m fine now, I’m cool,” Mikey says, hollow and away from himself. He grins at Leonardo, skipping backwards from his not-brother. “I was just jokin’, see? I remember just fine. Think I’ll head out an’ catch up with Mondo now, m’kay?”

“Wait, Mikey, let Donnie at least-”

“Nope! Things to be, places to do, _sayonara,_ homeslice.”

Mikey barely manages to keep up the careless sway to his run, the desire to sprint full tilt to the surface near overwhelming. But he makes it out. He gets away from the imposters who’ve stolen his home. He runs through the tunnels and retraces his steps exactly. He gets aboveground to the light polluted night sky and stares up at it, hands shaking, and sees a black hole tearing open in space, swallowing the horizon, the light, the _world,_ taking all of them with it-

“Mikey?” Leonardo’s voice asks, too close to his face, and Mikey lashes out. A precise divert of his blow and Leonardo has Mikey’s face between his hands. “Hey, hey, it’s me, okay? It’s okay, you’re outside with me again. You got out, Mikey.”

A ragged inhale comes from Mikey’s throat, the noise harshly loud. He feels sick, feels detached from his own body. Everything is still threatening to slip into the black hole and every part of him _aches._

“He’s dead,” Mikey rambles, sore fingers clutching Leo’s wrists. “He’s dead, Leo, they k- _killed him-”_

“Mikey, slow down, _who’s_ dead?”

 _“Splinter,”_ he rasps. “They killed our dad, Leo. They let him _die.”_

Mikey’s eyes are stinging, but he’s not crying. Somehow, it’s worse to watch Leo’s eyes flood over instead.

-/-

Mikey forces them back out into space before he’ll explain anything. Donnie doesn’t even try to argue- he sees the empty distance in Mikey’s gaze, and hears the rattle to Leo’s uneven breaths.

 _Retreat, regroup._ It’s standard procedure for a mission gone wrong. But neither of Donnie’s brothers are injured physically, and their doppelgangers didn’t come chasing after Mikey’s escape. What _happened_ down there?

It’s as the ship settles into orbit with earth, cloaked from satellites, that they get answers.

“Splinter’s dead,” Mikey says to them all, dull and inflectionless. “I don’t know how, or when- but they had the altar. And Raph- the other Raph, he confirmed it.”

“You’re kidding,” Casey says in a shell-shocked voice, so very quiet compared to his normal volume. They all stare at Mikey, searching his expression for a hint of a joke, a shitty prank, _it can’t be true, it can’t be._

Someone smashes their fist against a computer panel, cracking glass, sparks flying. Donnie glances at the sound and sees Raph taking his hand away from the partially crushed panel. He’s staring at Mikey with vivid fury, clenching his bleeding fist.

“Don’t fucking joke about this,” Raph says lowly, his rejection of the news clear on his face. “Don’t you _dare_ fucking joke about this!”

“It’s not a joke,” Mikey says, unruffled, and he doesn’t so much as _blink_ as Raph advances on him in the span of seconds, grabbing him by the shoulder and pulling back his dripping fist-

“ _Raph!”_ April shouts, getting between them and shoving them apart.

“I’m not just gonna stand here an’ listen to him- to him _lie!”_ Raph shouts back.

“Guys, stop-” Casey starts.

“I’m not _lying!”_ Mikey suddenly yells, composure breaking. Raph snarls and goes for him again; this time Mikey reciprocating.

“ _Mikey, Raph,_ calm down!” April orders, struggling to pull them apart again.

“Oh- oh dear, children, please,” Honeycutt tries, approaching with Casey and trying to break up the fight. Voices rise in volume and intensity. It’s chaos. They’re all panicking, loudly, stunned into terror as a constant in their lives is ripped away from them in a handful of words.

Donnie remains where he is, leaning against the wall for support. His mind is frozen, unable to reconcile with this information. His family goes to pieces as he stands there, struck dumb, and Donnie can barely find the sense to just keep _breathing._

It all comes to a screeching halt when a wail cuts through the noise. Leo is making a sound he’s _never_ made, not even when his body had been shredded into thin red ribbons. It sounds like pure loss. It sounds like he’s _dying._

It’s a catalyst, forcing them all to accept reality. Raph barks sharp, half-formed words, before devolving into curses and shoving away anyone trying to touch him. April, at a loss, attempts to calm Leo down with wavering words, but ends up breaking off as grief overwhelms her. Casey has his hands in his hair, mumbling, pacing a handful of steps and then just bending over, hands on his knees as support. Leo and April have sunk down to the floor, shaking as Leo continues to let out a _wretched_ cry.

Mikey remains standing, his moment of anger having dissipated. Honeycutt is attempting to speak to him. Out of all of them, Mikey is the only one who isn’t dissolving into tears.

That observation makes Donnie stop and examine himself. Huh. He’s on the floor, now, and his mask is sticking to his face under his eyes.

It’s all so surreal, but as he tugs his mask off and rubs his eyes, the sensation of tears, constricted breathing- it’s all irrefutable evidence that this is _happening,_ and Splinter is dead.

Distantly, he thinks _This changes things._

Later, he’ll think _This changes **nothing.**_

-/-

“We’ll wait until tomorrow night. Gather resources and plan strategy, and then take them all down at the same time. That way, no one will be able to provide backup or sound the alarm.”

“When you say take them down…”

“No, Raph, we’re not using lethal force. Yet.”

“There we go.”

“Dibs on punching myself.”

“…I was going to suggest we mix and match, to ensure there’s no stalemate, but sure, Casey. You can punch yourself.”

“That guy took my fuckin’ _family_ , Leo. I’m gonna break every bone in his body.”

“Again, refrain from lethal force for the time being.”

“I’ll take out my own doppelganger, too, Leo. No offense, but I’m the only one who can counter her abilities.”

“Fair enough. Keep us updated in case you get into trouble, and same to you, Casey. The rest of us will figure out the most advantageous pair ups between us four. Aim for weak points and play to our strong suits.”

“It’ll also avoid the potential fusion of us with our doubles, or the chance of a paradox forming, or possibly even a miniature black hole.”

“Wait wait wait that’s a _risk-?”_

“Mikey, I promise it’s a very small one. Isn’t that right, _Donnie?”_

“Just covering our bases here. Can I bring my new dart gun?”

“Did you figure out how to stop the permanent paralysis thing?”

“…No.”

“Then no.”

“What about laser knives?”

“Wh- Mikey where did you even get those?”

“Y-Girl’s ship.”

“You stole them.”

“Yeah. She had other ones I didn’t take though.”

“For god’s sake…”

“So can I bring ‘em?”

“…Fine. But please, please- let’s stick to the plan. We don’t know what the doubles are capable of, or how they’ll react if we can’t take them out in one go. If they’re really us, then there is one thing we _do_ know about them. Once we get them backed into a corner… that’s when they’ll be at their most dangerous.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that was act two.
> 
> (:


	4. ACT THREE | PART ONE: RETRIBUTION OF THE FORSAKEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leo isn’t certain if they should be concerned about Mikey’s behavior.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES!!!!! this is the point where we switch team povs to the Doomed Team. i repeat, we're swapping over from the Alpha Team to the Doomed Team AKA the life-stealers. time to get some alternate views on what's going down :3c

Leo isn’t certain if they should be concerned about Mikey’s behavior.

For all that Mikey will play up the act of being sensitive and goofy, he has doled out cruelty and pettiness in an equally erratic measure. Like purposefully putting cockroaches into Raph’s meal portions, after their hotheaded sibling got overly rough in sparring. Pranks in revenge for an argument or slight happen often, and so it leads Leo to question whether Mikey’s forgetfulness had been as such.

It’d hurt, for Leo, to deal with what happened. He didn’t like talking about their father’s death, let alone exacerbating the wound like Raph had done. Maybe that’d been the plan- pretending to forget and then pushing Raph into snapping, indirectly hurting Leo through memory flashes.

It’s a more convoluted prank than usual, if so, but not out of the question. Leo can’t think of any other explanation; Mikey hadn’t had any visible injuries, and having amnesia _only_ about their father is far-fetched. Retracing the past week, Leo wonders what specifically Mikey is attempting to get back at him for.

Confused and annoyed, Leo waits somewhat impatiently for Mikey to return. His brother only comes home as the night edges towards morning; sedately coming down the steps with his skateboard under his arm.

“Mikey,” Leo says, standing from the couch where he’d waited, finishing a sudoku puzzle. “Care to explain your behavior earlier tonight?”

“Uhhh my what?” Mikey asks, giving him a strange look.

Leo crosses his arms. “You know what I’m talking about.”

Mikey frowns, tone somewhat defensive as he says, “I don’t, seriously.”

Leo hates it when Mikey is purposefully obtuse. Dishonesty even when you’ve been called out is just cowardice. “If you’ve got some sort of issue you’d like to talk about,” Leo says, frustrated, “I’d rather you handled it _maturely,_ for once.”

“Man, the only one with an issue here is _you,”_ Mikey drawls. His expression has shifted from defensive to closed off. He’s shut Leo out. “Listen, I dunno what you’re pissed about, but lemme just get out of your way. I’m goin’ to bed. Goodnight.”

“Mikey, we’re not done yet.”

“Nah, we really are.”

And then Mikey walks out of the room, ignoring him completely. Leo considers for a moment the choice to chase after his brother, pursue the argument further. In the end, he decides it’s not worth it. The prank might have been callously devised, but it’s one of the less messy or destructive ones Mikey has played on them. Cornering Mikey right now will just result in something exploding goo in his face tomorrow night.

Leo sighs, dismayed by the temperaments of his siblings. Raph fell into the exact role Mikey had wanted, with his easy to trigger anger, and when he’d come back with Donnie, their tallest sibling had given both of them a scathing glare for being interrupted over _nothing,_ as Mikey was long gone. A convoluted way to get at Leo, leaving him to endure two types of irritated tempers for the rest of the night.

If only Mikey would apply this much effort to actual battle tactics. He’d be a far more effective ninja.

Someday, Leo will figure out how to get his brothers to act like reasonable, mature persons. And someday, Hell will freeze over and New York will be free of traffic. _Yeah, right._

Leo puts himself out of his own misery and goes to bed finally. Tonight has been no weirder or more annoying than is typical for his family; wasting time dwelling on it will just give him a headache.

-/-

The next evening is less typical.

It begins according to norm. The routine they have proceeds in order: Leo wakes first, working through a warmup. Donnie drags himself from bed and to the coffeemaker, mutely grumpy until he’s downed a full cup. Raph and Mikey wake around the same time, quarreling over the bathroom and then over who gets which stove element as breakfast is made. They leave a portion for their father on his shrine, saying prayer before eating the meal themselves.

It’s shortly after, when the dishes have been left in the sink and they’re beginning to disperse to separate rooms, that the relative peace is thoroughly shattered.

Three metal canisters fly into the common room, clattering across the stones and startling the two current occupants- Raph and Mikey. Then, thick white smoke begins billowing out of them. In seconds, the air is full of it, reducing visibility to next to nothing.

Raph curses loudly, he hasn’t equipped his sais yet tonight. He’s _vulnerable._ “Mikey!” he shouts into the smoke, not giving a shit if his voice draws fire. “Fall back to the dojo! Get our-”

A figure materializes nearly in front of him. Raph nearly lashes out at it, but he then sees it’s Donnie. Relief momentarily fills his chest. “Don- please tell me you got your bo on you.”

“I do,” Donnie says, drawing it from across his shell.

“At least one of us was prepared,” Raph says, kicking himself for not being so. He hears the sounds of conflict beginning somewhere in the soupy whiteness around them; Raph switches gears and grabs at his brother’s arm to pull him along. “C’mon, we gotta find fearless and the idiot, I don’t think either of ‘em have their weapons-”

“Oh, they definitely don’t. That’s the plan.”

“What? What’re you-”

The length of his brother’s staff hits the side of his skull, instantly sending Raph into blackness.

-/-

“Raph?” Mikey responds, spinning in the smog. Shit, dammnit, _why_ is this happening? All their enemies were supposed to be dead or turned ally or just having plain left town by now. Mikey almost shouts again but instinct has him clamping down on his tongue. This is not the moment to be noisy; this is the moment to disappear.

He knows where he is- probably, anyway. Special awareness is something he’s good at keeping in his head. Mikey draws two kunai from his belt; sucks that he hadn’t picked up his nunchucks yet, but at least he’s got these. _Get to the wall,_ that’s his plan right now. Have something to his back.

Controlling his breathing, Mikey is grateful that of all the skills he’d been taught, stealth is the one he refined the best. It just so happens that skill is his most unexpected trump card- even his own team forgets he can do so.

He feels more than sees or hears his enemies around him. April and Leo understand he means when he talks about the sensation of _feeling_ another’s presence. He knows where they are, and he knows how to make sure they don’t know where _he_ is. Mikey makes it to the far wall, next to the stairs into the dojo, and he takes a second to tamp down on his panic.

He’s absolutely panicking, holy _shit._ Someone is in their home, _again,_ and knew enough of their routine to catch them all together like this. It’s unbelievably scary, going through this all over again. Experiencing the one place that’s supposed to be _safe_ for their family, compromised and under siege.

Mikey’s thoughts have wandered, but his body is humming with adrenaline and he automatically slashes a kunai at a presence. The noise the presence makes- a surprised _eep-_ is definitely Leo’s voice, making Mikey wince and pull back.

“Sorry!” he yell-whispers. “You spooked me, dude, Jesus Christ. Don’t sneak up on a guy like that!”

“Sorry!” Leo yell-whispers back. “I swear I didn’t mean to.”

Mikey huffs. His brother can count himself lucky he didn’t lose an eye or something. “What’s the plan?” Mikey asks, putting aside the scare.

“We get to the lab,” Leo instructs. “I already had Raph head that way; Donnie is ready for our getaway.”

Mikey nods wordlessly, beginning the hurried journey along the wall. The extra presences are still everywhere, but thankfully not anywhere near them. Mikey silently hopes whoever is attacking them right now will end up fighting each other in the smoke.

Leo’s presence keeps close to him, a breadth of space between them, and it’s a comfort. Someone he trusts is watching his shell, something Mikey really appreciates right now-

That thought is the last one he has, before two sharp jabs to his neck, hitting nerves, forces his eyes to roll up into his skull and then Mikey feels himself falling.

-/-

Donnie wishes he could feel surprised by the white smoke creeping under his lab’s door, but no. He’s unnerved- scared, even- but not surprised.

It’s been quiet lately. Peace doesn’t mesh well with his now ingrained habits of building new weaponry every week. This is the other shoe finally dropping, same as always.

Donnie grabs a semi-finalized project off a table- a miniature launcher, each projectile with the force of an especially nasty cherry bomb- and hauls open the door. He grimaces at the wall of nigh impenetrable smoke that’s filled the lair’s common room; it lacks the acrid taste of burning, so that rules out a fire, but indicates that this is a purposeful attack without doubt.

A figure abruptly barrels out of the whiteness and Donnie barely misses taking a chunk out of his brother. The launched bomb goes off in the near distance, but has thankfully been avoided by Raph as he ducks and rolls into the lab, coming up on both feet as he does.

“For fuck’s sake, Raph,” Donnie snaps, nerves screeching at the close call.

“Fuck off!” Raph snaps right back, eloquent as ever.

“What the hell is happening out there?”

“Do I _look_ like I know?”

Donnie gives his surly sibling a low hiss, before turning back to the much more pressing matter at hand. His launcher is useless unless he knows where he’s aiming- and there’s the collateral damage and friendly fire that he’d cause if he misses-

“Got any toys for me to play with? Like a taser or something?” Raph asks, deciding for some reason that _now_ is when he takes an interest in Donnie’s work. Donnie grits his teeth and tries to keep focused.

“Stun guns are in the left drawer of the nearest table, you _know_ that.”

“Well excuse _me_ for forgetting- this is kind of a tense situation, if you hadn’t noticed!”

“Shut up and get over here already,” Donnie orders, holding his launcher’s grip tightly. “We need to find the others, whoever is doing this clearly isn’t any of our usual-” His words become a scream as electricity wracks his body.

Donnie collapses, jerking in spasms as the aftershocks fizzle in his limbs. His vision swirls, unfocused. Before he can even begin to recover, the twin tips of the stun gun jab into his side a second time and his mind goes blank.

-/-

Leo is in the washroom, inspecting his scales for any dry patches in the mirror, when he hears Raph and Mikey start yelling. Their voices are muffled by the walls, though Leo can guess what’s going on. He sighs, considering whether to intervene or not with their latest argument.

He pulls his mask down to hang around his neck, electing to let his brothers get the worst of it out of their systems first. Wetting his washcloth, he scrubs at his face. The noise persists, but he doesn’t pay it any mind… until the bomb goes off, anyway.

Leo’s eye twitches. So, Donnie is involved too, now.

Not bothering to wipe off the lingering foam from his face wash, Leo marches over to the bathroom door- intent on shouting himself hoarse if his siblings have damaged their home, _yet again._ Leo unlocks it and yanks the door open.

He gets a face full of thick smoke, which hits the back of his throat as he inhales in surprise. It scratches against the long-healed injury to his larynx, making him cough painfully. Leo’s thoughts jump right into panic, and then into the practiced battle calm he needs to lead. The lair is under attack. He doesn’t know who the culprit is or the status of his brothers. This needs to be remedied _now._

He keeps an old practice sword in his room- it’ll have to do until he can get to his proper ones in the dojo, left there after maintenance yesterday. Leo ducks in and out of his bedroom, clutching the blade in a death grip as he hurries towards the source of the chaos.

Someone runs straight into him before he even gets to the stairs, artfully dodging the stab Leo takes at their torso. “ _Bro,”_ Mikey says in an offended tone, scowling at him. He doesn’t seem concerned he’d nearly been impaled, but Leo doesn’t have time to think about that.

“What’s going on? Who’s attacking?”

“Dunno. Some weird guys with smoke bombs. Didn’t see their faces.”

Leo should have expected that sort of answer from Mikey. His ability of observation is as unpredictable, as always. “Look, just stick close until we find the others, we don’t know who-…” He trails off, feeling a sudden shiver of unease.

“Uh, we don’t know who, and?” Mikey prompts, staring at him. Leo stares back, unsure why his gut is telling him something is _off._

( _“Where the fuck is he?_ ”)

( _“Man, the only one with an issue here is you._ ”)

“Mikey?” Leo says, taking a step back. “What’s going on?”

“We’re under attack? Duh?” Mikey says, head tilted. “C’mon, let’s go find the others.”

The sounds of fighting have stopped. There’s just an unsettling quiet now, with the heavy smoke beginning to thin out. Leo takes further steps backwards, staring at Mikey and replaying their two conversations in his head.

_They sound the same, act the same, but-_

“Who are you?” Leo asks, scared despite himself.

Mikey maintains confusion a beat longer, then his expression becomes flatly annoyed.

“Of course you’d notice _now._ Ugh.” Mikey’s nunchucks rattle as they combine, the kusarigama’s scythe glinting as Mikey starts spinning it. “Gotta admit, I was kinda hopin’ someone would... Guess I should’a known it’d be you and taken ya by surprise instead.”

Leo’s eyes widen as his brother whips the chain at him, slicing the air next to his head as he dodges to the side. He’s off-balance, mind stuck on the sheer confusion of what’s happening. Mikey darts forwards with speed Leo hasn’t seen before, utilizing the other end of his ranged weapon and wrapping it around Leo’s wrist before he can even blink. Leo yanks against it, but his opponent pulls a maneuver that Leo can’t even _see_ in the smoke- and his sword is snapped up into his face, the flat of it smacking into his nose and eye.

He’s toppled easily- _embarrassingly_ so- and wheezes as the chains snake around his arms and neck, pinning his weapon dangerously close to his throat.

“Probably don’t wanna wiggle too much,” Mikey advises, foot on Leo’s chest as he holds the chains taut. Turning his head, he shouts, “Ey, Dee! Some help with knocking out little boy blue?”

“ _You had one job, Mikey!”_ comes Donnie’s voice. Leo finds himself paralyzed, hurt and anger wrestling in his chest as his _brothers_ take him captive.

“What the _hell_ is wrong with you?” Leo accuses Mikey.

Mikey tilts his head, smiling in the way he usually only aims at their family’s enemies. It’s unnerving and _wrong_ to be on the receiving end of the expression.

“You tell me what the hell is wrong with _you,_ first, dude.”

Donnie emerges from the smokescreen, approaching them with a grim but neutral glare. Leo feels the press of his own sword into his scales, a shallow slice to his cheek beginning to leak blood, but he can’t stop himself from flinching away as Donnie kneels and takes out an injector.

Nothing makes sense. Who _are_ these people, who look and sound and act like his brothers- his _only family left,_ who he loves, would fight to the death for, who would fight to the death for _him-_ and yet, and yet-

“Why’re you doing this?” Leo asks, voice small. Uncomprehending.

Donnie’s careful neutrality flickers with emotion for a split second, but it’s smoothed over after. The sting of the needle into Leo’s shoulder is short lived, darkness drawing him down within moments.

-/-

April can still occasionally remember a time when every little misstep in her day plan didn’t send anxiety crackling under her skin.

 _Can’t make it, sorry-_ that’s the only explanation she’s received from her friends, excluding Casey, who hasn’t responded at all. Out of the six of them, only _she_ made it to Murakami’s tonight for dinner? Weird. Not impossible, but definitely weird. And now no one is picking up their phones, either.

Coincidence didn’t used to curdle her stomach. Ugh.

April blows out a harsh breath, telling herself she’s being paranoid. To calm that paranoia, she dials her dad’s cell. They’re both working through a lot of _issues,_ to say the least, about not being able to contact the other. The agreement is that no matter what, no matter when, if one of them calls the other, they pick up. No excuses.

The call goes straight to voicemail. April stands on of Murakami’s rooftop and tells herself it’s fine, it’s fine, he probably just hit the reject button on accident. She calls again.

Voicemail.

Another three tries warrant the same result.

So. April is not panicking. She’s just dropping by her apartment to say goodnight to her dad, let him know her plans have been cancelled and she might have a night in- after she goes and checks in on her friends, anyway. Everything is fine, everything is fine.

The wind whistles cold and sharp in her hearing as she runs over the streets.

The apartment looks normal from outside; no broken windows, no smoke inside, no alien spaceship on the roof or government SUVs surrounding the block or god even knows what, the parade of enemies only slowed recently. April still feels a shiver of foreboding down her spine.

Not bothering to take the stairs, she hits the roof of her home and then jumps off the edge to reach her bedroom. The weathered metal thrums under her fingers and toes as she catches herself on the railing, neatly and quietly as a cat. The latch is unlocked, but she left it like that, normal people can’t get up here, there’s no one _abnormal_ left to do so except for her family or allies.

April slips inside, examining her own room. Nothing out of the ordinary. She still proceeds cautiously across the floor, hearing voices- _plural_ voices- just outside her closed door. April grasps the knob, turning it and straining to make out the owners, there’s her dad, laughing, and then-

“ _You know, we should do this more. I can’t even remember the last time we sat down and had dinner.”_

_“Honey, we did last week.”_

_“Right, right, but not_ this _week until tonight-”_

“ _You just want me to make you another meatloaf.”_

_“It’s so good, dad! Can you blame me?”_

_Who,_ is April’s first thought as she opens the door faster than she meant to, and it’s quickly followed by _That’s me, that’s **my voice-**_

The hallway that links the bedrooms to the dining room allows her a slant of a viewpoint. A sliver of what’s going on in there for her to see. The chair on the wobbly end of the table is visible, and so is the figure sitting in it, lounging in April’s fluffy bathrobe, smiling presumably at her dad with this adoring, achingly fond expression. The figure laughs, grins, jokes about meatloaf and dinners and bad scheduling-

And turns her eyes deliberately towards April, like she knows she’s there, like she’s been _waiting._

April stares into her own two eyes, a mirror reflection, and can’t even fathom what’s happening right now.

The person wearing her face is still smiling, still staring right back. April has a hand on tanto’s grip before she even thinks to. But she stills when the person’s eyes flicker to the figure of Kirby O’Neil, standing from the table and bustling by to get more water. The person looks back at April, still smiling, and raises a finger to her lips.

 _Don’t spoil the game._ That’s what her eyes and smile say. Behind April, the ceramic lamp on her bedside table cracks audibly, papers on her desk scattering, a picture frame hitting the carpet. She sees and feels and tastes _red._

“Hey, dad?” says the person, using her voice, _her voice._ “I’m gonna take a walk, but I’ll be back soon.”

“Oh? Well… be careful about it, it’s getting late.”

The person’s eyes dance with amusement, the sort April feels whenever her dad tells her to be wary of shadowed alleys. Because if anything, _April_ is what people should fear in those dark passages. Her blade sings as she draws it and the person in the dining room doesn’t break eye contact.

She raises a single finger, again, pointing upwards. And then she’s gone from view, throwing the fluffy yellow robe over the chair’s back as she does.

 _The roof._ April hisses and scrambles out the window. She literally flies to the roof, fury stoking her powers’ core to a near bonfire. Her shoes skid against the concrete as she lands in an offensive stance, sword at the ready and half a mind to just stab first, ask questions later.

“Who are you?” April spits to the person standing on the opposite side of the roof. “What do you want with my dad?”

“Probably the same thing as you,” replies her own voice. The person shrugs nonchalantly, like this isn’t a big deal. “Love, hugs, more homemade meatloaf. The general care package of being someone’s daughter.”

“What’s your fucking angle?” April demands, advancing threateningly. They _finally_ secured their peace; they have the right to just for once live _happily._ “Is this some kind of new Kraang experiment? D’you idiots think you’ll get away with capturing me by _replacing_ me-?”

“I should be the one saying that to _you,”_ snaps the person, April’s fury reflected perfectly back at her. Caught off-guard by the venom in her tone, April pauses to properly examine her opponent.

The same hair, freckles, bright blue eyes. The same black headband she prefers. A jumpsuit, like April wears, but vastly different in color and design. It’s dark, with hints of blues and silvers, not yellows and whites. It melds to her body differently, has pockets and a utility belt, sleeves to her wrists. No sword, no shoulder holster for April’s treasured fan.

Still, she checks the weight of her own holsters, making _certain_ it’s still there. Something is happening right now, clearly. Some new threat, some new war on her doorstep once again-

“You don’t even suspect who I am? Who _you_ are?” says the person, accusing with stormy eyes.

April grips her sword tighter. “Funny thing, I don’t really care. I just want you off this roof, out of this city, and to _stay away from my dad.”_

“ _Funnier_ thing,” the person says in a derisive tone. “I want same the thing from you.”

She puts a hand behind her back. April tenses, pre-emptively flinching forwards before she pulls back. Her clone draws out not a weapon- not one April can identify. It fits in her hand, has no points or barrels or even buttons. And then the clone twitches her hand, and-

It unfolds, soundlessly, like liquid metal, hilt and grip fitting into her hand. Longer than April’s tanto, a thin teal blade extends seemingly from nothing. The way it faintly glows along the edge sets alarm bells off in April’s mind.

“That’s Salamandrian tech,” she says, stunned breathless. The pieces connect themselves.

“Custom job, too,” replies the person tonelessly. “A rush order, but it works as a substitute for the one you’ve got there.” Her eyes flash dangerously. “The one _I_ should have gotten, during the ceremony _I_ should have had!”

“No- it’s mine, I earned it,” April refutes, still too shocked to react.

“You mean you _stole_ it.”

“ _No!_ I earned it! I worked for years-”

“ _So did I!”_ yells her clone.

They hold tense silence, glaring each other down. Blades drawn, the blaze of their powers pushing against one another. If April had any doubts remaining, the core of energy within the person before her would’ve absolved them.

“Why did you come back?” April asks, confused and angry.

“Why _wouldn’t_ I come home?” shouts the time clone, and there’s suddenly an arc of alien steel swinging at April’s face. The clone rushed her- is in her space- their blades clang against each other, trembling at the strength each wielder possesses.

“You knew,” hisses the clone, “you knew the loop was broken and that you were _stealing our lives._ How could you do that? _Why_ would you?”

“We- didn’t steal- _anything!”_ Heaving, April breaks the stalemate by throwing her full weight forwards. Their blades shriek as they separate, darting backwards. There’s not even time to breathe before they clash again.

-/-

Casey is late as fuck, and he can’t even call ahead. Stupid phone, stupid Johnston- a cracked screen he could’ve worked around, but it’d nearly been _bisected_ by his teammate’s skate. Not even Donnie could salvage it at this point.

He stops off at home to ditch his hockey duffle. His dad is ‘watching’ a soccer game on the TV in the living room, letting out the occasional snore. Passing the kitchen, he says hello to his thirteen-year-old kid sister.

“Sup, scrub,” Casey says affectionately.

“Sup, turdball,” Sam replies, hardly taking her eyes off her iPad and the movie she’s watching. Her homework is spread in front of her on the table, somehow mostly done already. Girl can multitask like it’s nothing, seriously.

“You guys eat dinner yet?” Casey asks as he ducks into his room. Hockey gear ditched; vigilante gear obtained. Hell yeah.

“Leftovers are in the fridge, bottom shelf,” Sam replies from down the hall.

“I’m goin’ out, actually.”

“Bring me back dessert!”

Casey rolls his eyes, shoving his nail-glove on. He swings his sticks and ammo bag onto his shoulder, gliding down the hall on his skates. He spins around the table, once, twice, stopping and giving Sam an obnoxiously loud kiss on the top of her head. She yowls like the wild thing she is, scolding him for interrupting her film’s climax.

“You’re ruining it! Go away! Spinel is killing the _earth!”_

“Spoiler: Batman dies!”

“ _That joke isn’t funny the first or millionth time, jerk!”_

Casey cackles all the way out the door, pausing briefly to tell his old man he’ll be out as usual tonight. Arnold Jones Sr opens his eyes blearily and mumbles assent; whether he’ll remember this or not later is up in the air, but whatever. His dad trusts him to take care of himself.

Casey starts hoofing it to Murakami’s soon as he gets to ground level. He’s pretty sure he’ll make it there before anyone starts flipping their lids about being out of contact with him. Causing a x5 panic attack with ninjas is an unpleasant experience; he would know. It’s enough an encouragement for him to hurry that he uses every shortcut he spots. It’s enough an encouragement for his focus to be solely on keeping up speed.

He doesn’t notice the person tailing him.

Not until that person is abruptly next to him and _reaching to grab his shoulder-_ Casey spins on a dime, going for a right hook without hesitating. His gloved fist is caught by another, identical gloved hand.

“What the f-” Casey chokes in shock, freezing, eyes wide as he comes face to face with the mask he’s _currently wearing._

“Sup, asshat,” says _his voice._ “That any way to greet your space clone?”

The hair-trigger of Casey’s adrenaline has already made him jittery, ready for a fight, but he lets out a startled laugh and drops his fist, flicking his mask up to beam at other-Casey. “Damn, dude! You gave me like, five heart attacks.”

“Sorry,” says his clone, through the mask he hasn’t taken off. “Kinda in a rush right now, y’know how life or death scenarios go.”

Casey finally notices the rigid tension of near panic his other self has. His brief excitement of meeting his double again evaporates. “What’s going on?”

“It’s the others,” other-Casey (who Casey mentally decides to call _Jones_ ) says in a grave tone. “My others, I mean. They’re… they’re about to do something terrible.”

Casey feels dread. Jones is him, he’s Jones. They’ve seen and done pretty much all the same shit. They both know their team has had to make hard decisions- often times less than savory ones. What could be far enough over the line that he’d reject it?

“The others wanna come home,” Jones continues, seeing Casey’s silent question. “Not just for a visit. They want to come _home,_ and they don’t wanna share it.”

That implies what’s about to happen pretty blatantly. Holy shit. “That’s insane,” Casey says, stunned that any version of his best friends could go that dark.

“That’s what I said,” Jones says grimly. “But they’re not listening. They won’t listen to _anyone._ ”

“We gotta stop them.”

“That’s why I came and got you.”

Casey smiles, but it feels like a grimace. “You were right to seek out _Casey Jones_. Now we’re-”

“-double the badass?” Jones’s face is hidden, but his tone has a smirk in it. “Hell yeah we are. C’mon, let’s go smack some sense into our friends.”

“ _Fuck yeah.”_

The forced excitement eases some of the twisting in his stomach.

They make for the lair’s direction. Casey is privately flipping out about how cool it is, teaming up with his time-clone again. Heck, he’d almost forgotten about the other-them running around the universe. He’d kinda thought they’d disappear? Or something? No one ever explained how the time travelling was supposed to work; he just made assumptions it’d work out, and it did.

At least until tonight, when his buddies’ clones all decided to go take out the originals. Damn, that’s another sci-fi trope to check off the list for his literal actual real life.

“Ah, shit, wait, what about the Aprils?” Casey asks over their skates’ grind of wheels. “Is your April out to get my April, too?”

Jones nods. “Yeah. Already caught her, too. Don’t worry- no one’s hurt, uh, much. They should all still be in the lair. That’s where we were supposed to meet up, after we took down our doubles.”

“Jesus. This is real nightmare scenario, even for us.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What’re they planning on doing to us, anyway? Like, is this a ‘hiding bodies in the sewers’ type deal, or ‘lock us in a basement and throw away the key’ type, or-”

“Uhhhhh dunno, really? Donnie went and made a plan with, um, Leo and April, about them… combining us? Maybe?” Jones gesticulates vaguely. “All I know is they’ve got a zappy raygun thingy that we do _not_ want you getting hit by.”

“Wow,” Casey says, a little impressed despite himself. “Donnie went full mad scientist, huh? Scary.”

Jones gives a mumbled assent and then pulls ahead with a burst of speed. Casey copies, catching up as they redouble their efforts to reach the lair in time to stop this from going down.

There’s _smoke_ drifting along the ceiling of the tunnels, which makes Casey’s stomach swoop unpleasantly. _He_ might relish danger and battle, but that enjoyment never extends to his team getting hurt. What are they going to walk in on? It doesn’t smell like burning, but he’s no expert, and it-

It feels like terror, like helplessness. Two feelings Casey has come to loathe more than anything.

He doesn’t slow until he’s right at the edge of the stairs into the lair, at which point his double slows as well. “I haven’t been here in a while,” Jones says under his breath. “You’re gonna know the lay of the land better’n me. Take point.”

Casey nods. It’s a good idea. He takes lead position and creeps up to the turnstiles; kneeling low as he gets there, peering at the figures moving around the faintly smoggy lair. Four standing. Four on the ground. Casey grits his teeth, rage boiling up in his veins. _No one_ messes with his family.

He lets the fury carry him forwards, vaulting the turnstiles and skidding to a stop at the lip of the steps. The four clones walking around like they own the place freeze as he does, shooting somewhat surprised glances.

“Casey?” asks not-Leo.

Casey’s eyes dart to the _real_ Leo, and all his unconscious siblings beside him, and sneers underneath his mask. “That’s me,” he says, brandishing his hockey stick. “And that’s _him,_ and we’re here to kick your sorry green-”

The first impact of a bat against his skull is enough to force him to his knees. The second flattens him, gear clattering as Casey’s vision skitters and blackens. He can’t find the strength to move his legs, a sick nausea climbing his throat as the world spins in agony.

“Sorry,” says Jones, bending and beginning to strip away his weapons. “But no one, not even you _,_ gets to fuck with _my family.”_

 _Dad. Sam._ Casey hazily thinks of his sister and dad, thinks of not-him going back to the apartment and taking his place and them not even _noticing-_

“Yo, Donnie. April call you guys yet?”

“Not yet,” says not-Donnie’s voice, a _lot_ closer than Casey wants him to be. A foot nudges his head and he groans angrily, pained. Not-Donnie hums. “Do we even need restraints for this one? You hit him pretty hard.”

“Don’t underestimate Casey Jones,” says a smug Jones. “He’ll shake it off in no time, just you watch.”

“I’d say that shaking off a concussion is extremely ill-advised, but as I’ve done the same thing, that would make me a hypocrite…”

Other steps approach as his now bare hands are tied together. Casey hisses as two sharp jabs are delivered to his neck and then there’s- nothingness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> glorious art provided by my friend INCO who i will link the profile of later when i'm not completely exhausted.
> 
> go back and appreciate that beautiful badass lady up there. that's what 2012 april deserved to be.


	5. A3|P2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why would you lie to us?” Leonardo asks. “Why would you tell us we would get to come back, when you never had any intention of letting us?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [.....slinks in with new chapter that i've had written for months]
> 
> hello folks. i'm so sorry for the delay on this fic. around the time i suddenly stopped updating it was when i got hit Real Badly by the winter edition of depression, and i ended up shelving majority of my writing projects. but now that the world is, uh, kinda off its hinges, i've got some time off and can finally finish this guy up within the next 2 weeks or so. if anyone is still with me on this fic, thank you so much for your patience, you're a trooper.
> 
> specific TWs for this chapter are in the below notes, stay safe and wash your hands yall.

Cold water splashes against Donnie’s face, jolting him awake.

He gasps and coughs, trying to- to think, to regain his faculties- to breathe evenly and not focus on the burn stinging on a tender part of his side where neither carapace or cartilage cover-

“Hey, eyes up here.” Fingers snapping in his face. Donnie jerks away from them, blinking rapidly- trying to swear and finding his mouth gagged by fabric. Raph glowers at him, crouched on the balls of his feet in front of him.

“Rise and shine, genius,” says Raph, standing and walking away with the bucket he’d used. Donnie’s memories of before return to him in pieces as he does, and he glares after the clone of his real brother.

Said clone isn’t alone, either. There’s Mikey- _Michelangelo,_ Donnie decides- sitting a distance away on the couch, eyes fixed on them, fingers twirling throwing stars over and over and over. Donnie’s own clone isn’t much further away; Donatello is speaking in low murmurs with Leonardo, the two of them subtly glancing their direction time to time. Raphael has returned with another bucket of water, heading straight for everyone else, who’s lined up next to Donnie.

They’re all in a row. Like a prison lineup, like a display, like they’re ready to meet a firing squad- Donnie’s uncomfortably dizzy brain won’t pick a metaphor and stick with it, beyond deciding that this is all making him _sick_ to his stomach.

Mikey is roused next. Then Raph. Leo is left in his slump on the floor, not even twitching when cold water from the pool splashes his side. Donnie feels a throb of fear in his chest- not again, not again, fuck’s sake he’s had to stitch their leader back together _too many damn times-_

Casey is loud, despite his gag, as he wakes. Donnie is thrown for a moment, and then realizes with dread that it’s not just the four of their clones, it’s likely _all_ of the alternate timeline clones who’ve attacked them.

(Where’s April? Where is she? She’s not here, neither the time-clone nor _their_ April, the ferociously brave and ridiculous disaster magnet they’ve bled for and fought alongside and- she wouldn’t go down without a fight, a _big_ fight. Destroying-a-three-block-radius level big fight, given the destructive capabilities Za’Naron awakened in her, and now there’s _two of them_ -)

( _She’ll be fine, she’s always fine._ The hollow lie to himself is the only thing that keeps the worst thoughts at bay.)

Donnie’s hazy, scattered thoughts are refocused as someone touches the back of his head. He tenses, wary, waiting, but feels the gag loosen rather than a blow to the visibly vulnerable scarring back there. (He forgave Leo, Splinter saved his life, but magic ninja arts can’t erase the damage completely.)

Leonardo and Donatello approached at some point. Their Casey has joined Michelangelo and Raphael, glaring just as fiercely at they are. Down the line, the other Casey lets out a loud muffled shout of anger and lunges forwards. With his hands and feet tied together, he only manages to fall on his face.

Michelangelo _giggles._ Like it’s _funny_ to see versions of his family trussed up and at their mercy.

“Donatello,” says Leonardo.

Donnie turns his eyes back to him. The other version of his brother is kneeling before him, outside of arm’s reach, with his hands neatly folded in his lap. Donatello is a step away, holding his bo without the blade extended, and Leonardo isn’t wearing his swords. Ah, yes. The _see-we’re-not-here-to-fight, we-just-wanna-talk-we-swear_ angle to interrogation. Not that he’s had much chance to try it yet, but Donnie would personally lean towards chemicals that induce inhibition.

But drugs and dosages are _tricky,_ might send someone into shock or worse if given the wrong levels. Not great for anyone less skilled than Donnie, IE, Leonardo.

Though, he _does_ have a Donatello on his side… perhaps the concept of drugging your own family, timeline split or not, was a little too much to stomach. _Funny,_ Donnie thinks to himself, _I probably could have, if I were him._

(Six months in space, five here on earth- god, they’re nearly a year younger. Was it only a year that it took for him to get like this?)

“Why?”

Donnie needs to pull himself together, getting electrocuted isn’t _that_ bad. He answers with the taste of iron in his mouth- he bit his tongue, earlier. “‘Why’ what?”

Raphael snarls loudly enough to carry. Leonardo stares at Donnie with eyes so cold, they could be glass.

“Why would you lie to us?” Leonardo asks. “Why would you tell us we would get to come back, when you never had any intention of letting us?” Fists clench. “Why would just- _lead us on?”_

Ah… Donnie feels guilt raise its ugly head inside him. It’d be too easy that the lying never caught up with him. His life doesn’t get to be _easy,_ ever. But, the pros outweighed the cons, nothing is for free, and Donnie would do quite literally anything to keep his family safe.

He takes the guilt he feels, looking into the eyes of the other family he betrayed, and locks it deep, deep down inside himself.

He slowly looks to Donatello, speaking neutrally. “You could ask him that, too, you know.”

Donatello stiffens, hands tight on his bo staff. “I wouldn’t strand my own family in _space,”_ he says in disgust, barely keeping out an angry hiss-slur to his words.

“Contrary to that,” Donnie says, lips twitching into a small smirk, “I’m sitting right here, aren’t I?”

Donatello looks _livid._ The arm Leonardo puts out to stop him is the only thing saving Donnie’s hide. Donnie could laugh; if their enemies had known how easy he is to hurt through his own failures, Donnie might have died at fifteen.

“Donnie,” Leonardo says quietly, sternly, to Donatello, and the clone steps back. His eyes don’t lose their promise of retribution for the comment, however.

A year younger and free of the burdens Donnie carries, he doubts his other self would be able to go through with it. ( _He_ didn’t live through what Donnie has, hasn’t _died_ and come back, hasn’t held someone close and had to watch the life _fade from their eyes_ -)

“Why. Why did you steal our lives. Tell me your reasons now, or we’ll assume you’ve been sent by someone and… take care of things.” Leonardo has some of the same jagged steel Leo has, it seems. Donnie can almost believe he’d go through with the threat, maybe not even hesitate.

After all, Leo carried the head of their greatest enemy- their father’s _murderer-_ from the roof of a burning building. Dropped it at their feet, slick and leaking still, _proof_. Looked at all of them with dead, dead, dead eyes and said, “ _It’s over, now.”_

This Leo would have done the same thing. Donnie knows this. His brother never did find the pieces of himself that the Shredder carved out of him.

“I was telling the truth,” Donnie says, and sees the twist of anger enter Leonardo’s face. “About your Donatello right there, that is. He doesn’t know it yet, but he has the answer you’re looking for. It’ll come to him in about… a little over half a year?”

“And _what,_ exactly, is that?” Leonardo says before Donatello can speak.

Donnie shuts his eyes for a beat, thinking. Remembering. The trials, the losses, the mistakes.

“Because,” Donnie says, opening his eyes, meeting Leonardo’s gaze unflinchingly, “if there is one thing I know about myself… it’s that no matter what, I _will_ protect my family.”

“Even at the cost of your _other_ family?” Leonardo accuses. “Even by taking others’ _lives?”_

“Anything, _anything_ is worth it, I don’t care!” Donnie is saying more than he planned to, but Leo is on the floor, he’s not moving, _where is April-_ “We had to go home, for _sixth months_ that was the only thing keeping us going. I would’ve done another loop if we’d screwed up. I would’ve done _a hundred_ loops to get us home again!”

Mikey, beside him, makes a concerned, confused noise through his gag. Donnie chooses to not acknowledge it; whether their particular professor had had the capability to do so, Donnie would have found a way. He would have. There wouldn’t have been any other choice to make.

Donnie becomes aware he’s leaned forwards, breathing hard. Feeling a little like a caged animal ready to bite any hand extended. He purposefully recomposes himself and sits back. He’s supposed to be the analytical thinker, not the hothead brawler. He needs to cool down.

(He’s always been easiest to hurt through his failures.)

“…Then why did you let Splinter die?”

Donnie blinks. Leonardo has rage burning in his glass eyes, now. It’s not a good look for him.

“We didn’t _let_ him,” Donnie starts, offended.

“ _Yes you DID!”_ Leonardo shouts, and he’s got Donnie by the shoulders, lifting him, nearly by the _neck,_ and he’s right in his face, desperation and anger and _grief_ in his eyes. “You said it yourself! You’d do _anything_ to protect your family! So why did you _kill our father?”_

His brothers and Casey give muffled cries of outrage. Donnie wheezes, his trachea aching. “Shredder-”

“Shredder wasn’t the one supposed to protect our family,” Leonardo says, low and furious and trembling as he grips harder. “That was your job, it was _your fault-!”_

“LEO!” Donatello shouts, pulling him away and ignoring the horrible, grieving fury of Leonardo’s wordless yell. Donnie coughs and falls on his side, onto Mikey’s lap. For a moment, his mind is blank and he can’t think beyond the image of his brother strangling him, blaming him-

Mikey’s fingers touch his, something sharp and clever beginning to work at the knots binding them. Donnie breathes through his guilt- _it was his job, it was his job, it was_ his job- and crushes the emotion all over again. Focuses on them getting ready to run.

Leonardo and the others are distracted. No one is watching closely enough. Leonardo is crying in strangled sobs.

_We did what we had to do._ A mantra Donnie has told himself over the past months, the past years. They did what they had to do, again and again and again, and the sound of his brother grieving the loss of their father a second time does not penetrate his heart with barbs.

The rope around his wrists slackens. Donnie can take care of the rest. Mikey has himself free already and is palming something, multiple somethings, from somewhere hidden on himself and-

Smoke fills the lair’s common room.

-/-

They have one shot at this. No room for error.

It’s the only way they’re getting out of here, so Raph doesn’t hold back at all. Leo is still down, Casey is wobbling badly- Raph is just glad Donnie and Mikey are in fighting shape, because they’d be screwed otherwise. The second Mikey slices through Raph’s restraints with his throwing star, Raph jumps forwards, charging for the huddle of their clone.

There’s a tiny sliver of an opening for them to get this right. Thank god for the smoke bombs Mikey hides on himself, it gives Raph a much-needed advantage. Their opponent is in shock, allowing him to barrel into them and send the group toppling, tripping over the back of the couch and falling. Amidst the shouting and flailing, Raph doubles back.

Donnie has Casey, whose long limbs are shaky, and Mikey has Leo, their brother’s head lolling. Wordlessly agreeing, they make for the dojo.

Seconds, they have _seconds._ Raph hears their time clones recovering, getting back on their feet. The smoke is starting to dissipate. They need to grab weapons, get out the back way, regroup elsewhere and-

“ _Stop them!”_ hollers his own voice, and Raph’s temper flares white. He can barely _think_ he’s so fucking angry. This is their home, _their_ epilogue to the never-ending parade of bullshit life has dumped on them. _How dare they._

“Raph!” Mikey snaps, a rare tone for him to take. Raph almost ignores him, which is long enough a hesitance that their attackers catch up. A mirror to his family glares back at him as they flood the dojo, drawing weapons he has no counter to.

“Catch!” Donnie shouts, and Raph reaches out without looking. The length of a bo hits his palm, which- well, it’s not ideal, not _his_ , but it’ll do.

Besides. Upon further inspection, it’s not a bo at all. It’s a pike.

Raph can work with this.

“Mikey, on me,” Raph growls out, brandishing the atypical weapon. The three-pronged trident blade glints. “Donnie, you and Casey-”

“Doing it,” Donnie says. Mikey appears at Raph’s side, spinning a pike of his own. They fall into stance together, ready to hold the line. Raph glares at the reflection of their team. The reflection glowers in turn.

“You should’ve stayed in space,” Raph says, sneering.

His doppelganger twitches, green eyes acidic in their fury. “I’m gonna fuckin’ _gut you,”_ snarls his twin.

“Might wanna sidestep his entrails if ya do,” Mikey says in that morbidly-joking tone he gets. “You do _not_ wanna see what ten bowls of chilli does to his stomach.”

“Oh, I think I _do,_ though,” responds Mikey’s twin, smile like fangs bared. They laugh at the same time. It’s fucking _disturbing._

His brother is a freak, whatever, not news to him. He’s also pretty good at keeping attention focused on himself, seeing as the only one ready for Raph’s charge forwards is the other Michelangelo. Ah, well, that’s to be expected.

Michelangelo dodges. Leonardo gets his swords up in time to deflect, but their group is clustered together (idiots, clinging to each other never saves anyone). Raph slashes at Jones with the redirected angle, putting a deep gash into the protective gear on his chest. He nicks some skin, evident in how blood wells. Donatello’s bo whips at Raph and he’s forced to retreat, else risk his weapon being taken. Mikey comes at them all from the side, kicking off the real fight.

Raph can get why Donnie favors staves; the extra range keeps the clones back, lets Raph and Mikey hold ground despite being out numbered. Each time someone tries to break away, get around them and go after Donnie and Casey, one of them can drive them back with a few well aimed slashes.

It doesn’t work forever. Eventually, because Raph is a _close-range specialist, dammnit,_ the trick fails and someone gets past his guard. Leonardo’s swords shave splinters off the pike’s pole, narrowly missing Raph’s fingers as he curses and drops it. He hears a snapping sound, and- yep, that’s his other self breaking Mikey’s weapon in half. God, predictable.

Donatello swings his naginata blade upwards, holding the tip to Raph’s neck. His eyes are wide, irises brilliantly red with anger.

“ _Surrender,”_ he says, and sounds more like Raph’s Donnie for a moment.

And speak of the devil.

Donnie doesn’t announce himself, standing in the doorway with a launcher in his hands. Raph and Mikey don’t give up the game, just grinning and saying, _“No thanks.”_

They jump backwards. Donnie pulls the trigger, launching the chain-link net. The stakes around the edges bury their heads into the concrete, spines catching and holding. All five clones are captured. Seriously, _why_ do they all keep standing so close together?

“You- we won’t-!” Little Leonardo sputters and curses. He and his team are effectively pinned, too tightly to maneuver weapons easily- not unless they feel like slicing an ally up in the process.

“Seeya!” Mikey chirps, skirting the net. Raph follows, snorting at the embarrassment of their clones.

They really should have kept eyes on Donnie and Casey’s location. Maybe done a more thorough scouting, seeing as they completely missed hidden passageway. After so many lair invasions, like _hell_ they weren’t going to make better escape routes.

Leo is laid on Casey’s lap, by the stairs of the dojo. Donnie discards the one-shot netgun and stoops, collecting their unconscious leader and getting him on his back. Raph grasps Casey’s extended hand and hauls him to his feet. Mikey disappears into and reappears from Donnie’s lab before anyone can ask him to; carrying with him the grab-and-run bag of weapons they’ve got ready for emergencies.

Raph can hear metal on metal faintly, and knows that means their clones will break out of the trap soon enough. “C’mon, can you run? Limp?” The answer he gets from Casey is a dizzy mumble. Limping it is.

Raph’s hands itch to take his sais and turn back. The desire to pummel the shit out of the people who did _this-_ crippled their team, separated them, have them running _scared-_ it’s so strong it’s a physical, primal urge. To _hurt._ To _fight._

But Casey is listing against his side, and Leo is slumped over Donnie’s shoulders, and god only knows where April has ended up in this mess.

Raph puts his head down and swallows the need for revenge.

-/-

Casey has already had more concussions in his life than is probably advisable. Hockey, tree climbing, fighting evil ninjas, hockey again- what’s one more, right?

“H-hold on,” he manages to say, before turning to the side of the tunnel they’re fleeing through and throwing up. Oh man, his brain should _not_ feel like it’s been through a turbo blender. Everything keeps tilting the wrong way and the only thing keeping him upright is Raph’s arm under his.

“Casey,” says Raph, in that scared-angry way he does, and Casey can feel him beginning to tug on him but stopping the action halfway, trying to take care of him even when their collective focus right now should be _running like hell._

“I’m- fine.” Bile burns, ugh.

“You are not fine,” Donnie hisses, still here, waiting on them, despite having an unconscious Leo on his shell and a wild glint in his eye. Mikey has it worse, stuck as their only line of defense because Leo’s _out cold_ and Casey’s vision doesn’t feel like working and _dammnit,_ he’d been hoping he’d never see that look on the brothers’ faces ever again. Shredder is dead, they fucking _immolated_ him themselves, the triceratons got blown up, every other scumbag they used to throw down with now runs with their tails between their legs if they so much as get _looked at_ wrong, and, and-

Casey heaves twice more. Tries to get his head to sit correctly on his shoulders, even as the goose egg throbs viciously.

Sure would be nice if Leo woke up sometime soon and dished out some ninja healing magics. Or that Casey could wake up from this stupid nightmare.

“I’m slowing you down,” Casey rasps, standing up straight again. He only wobbles a little. “Just- run ahead, I’ll catch up. I’ll take, like, the subway or shit-”

“You’ll faint and drown in a gutter,” Raph snarls. Protective anger? Angry protectiveness? Who’s to know. “And do you expect us to dump Leo just ‘cause he’s knocked out? Yeah, I didn’t think so. We don’t fuckin’ leave each other behind, _idiot_.”

Casey isn’t their team strategist, but _he_ has instinct, knows how to play a game. They’re going to get caught at this rate, better to lose two heads out of five. “I-”

“We should split up!” Mikey blurts out, eyes still jumping everywhere as he looks for their pursuers. “Make it harder, stash Casey n’ Leo, distract ‘em and then bottleneck ‘em in the warehouse-”

“What?” Donnie asks, on behalf of all of them.

“Hide Leo and Casey, get to the Mutanimals,” Mikey summarizes.

Donnie and Raph blink. Casey does too. “That’s… actually a good idea,” says Donnie.

They agree, the plan is set, they’re about to separate when Casey’s scrambled-eggs brain makes him say, “Wait! Donnie, what about, are you gonna- y’know? Explain all That, later? With the, the.” He can’t force it out. Casey has a concussion, the thought is like ash in his mouth, feels uncomfortably close to something _unforgivable-_ he can’t say it.

The ‘it’ being the ‘That’ being the fact that they apparently stole their lives from themselves.

(Casey didn’t know. He wasn’t told, it wasn’t explained, he never- _asked._ He didn’t know, if he’d known, if he’d _known_ \- he’d have what? What would he have done?)

(Not this.)

Donnie’s shoulders are always too tense, carrying the weight of problems and heavy thoughts and so many worries, and Casey finds himself thinking of _Atlas,_ from a grade school arc of Greek mythos and history.

“Yeah,” Donnie says, and nothing else, and he doesn’t show any guilt in his gaze for what’s been done. Mikey isn’t looking at Casey; neither is Raph, the two of them keeping silent. Did they know? Did April? Did none of them even _think_ to ask Donnie what happened to the six kids they put on a spaceship and sent away into the dark of night and then gone home and _lain in their beds?_

Fuck, it’s been a year, for him, for his team, and a year seems like _forever_ with the lives they live. The Casey a year ago really was- _is-_ younger, before everything that followed happened to him.

But that’s something they don’t have luxury to talk about right now.

“Good luck,” Donnie and Raph say to each other, and Mikey gives a jaunty wave and a smile that says _farewell_ but very carefully not _goodbye._ Their group splits in two and they resume running, praying the erratic route with added within-the-past-few-months discovered shortcuts will give them time to scurry down a hole and _survive._

Casey still feels sick, and not only for the persistent _throb throb throb_ of his skull.

-/-

Leo feels kind of like when he was little, suffering through a nasty flu. Head filled with cotton; body heavy from the medicinal tincture their father made him.

His eyes open slowly, squinting at the dim light around him. Where…? He almost calls out for his father, muddied thoughts vaguely worried that he’s gotten sick again, if it’s spread to anyone else…

“Leo?” asks Donnie voice, and it’s not the one he’s expecting. Older, mature, not at all the reedy tone of a young teen. Looking to the right, Leo sees his brother’s drawn expression.

(In this light, red can almost look like brown.)

“How’re you feeling?” Donnie asks. “I don’t know what they gave you, but… I can’t find anything worrying. You’re probably groggy, though, and might be for a while yet.”

The words being spoken float around Leo’s fuzzy mind. Donnie turns his head and addresses someone else, telling them to go get some water. Leo wakes up gradually, and by the time Mikey returns with the water bottle, he’s recalling his memories.

Their father is long deceased, now. It’s been Donnie who nurses them through illness for years, anyway, even before his passing. And Donnie is also the one who-

Leo jolts, _remembering._ He scrambles away with a hoarse cry, kicking at Donnie and Mikey as they startle and reach for him. They- they took him down, drugged him, for _what, why would they-?_

“Leo, Leo! Chill, it’s okay, that wasn’t us, I swear.” Mikey has his hands up, placating and keeping his distance. Donnie hasn’t moved from where he kneels, keeping his posture nonthreatening. “We got a situation, but dude, I promise,” Mikey says, quiet and earnest, “we wouldn’t ever do that to you. No matter what.”

Leo’s breathing is still uneven, pulse hammering. He takes a gulp of air, and then another. Fights the panic attack trying to drag him under.

“Leo?” Donnie says gently. “It’s okay. We got somewhere safe. We’re safe. Now, I need you to listen to my voice, copy me as I count, okay? Take a breath in, hold- let it out, hold, one more time, take a breath in…”

A tense handful of moments pass. Leo steadily gets himself under control. Eventually, he slumps against the wall, letting out a long sigh. Mikey takes slow, telegraphed steps, and brings him the water bottle. They sit in silence while Leo swallows and then splashes his face.

“…What happened?” Leo asks, once he’s got his voice back. His throat itches, phantom pain from his scars. He almost goes to scratch at it, but stops himself. (Reopening the recent scabs healing there wouldn’t help anything.)

“Our time duplicates came back to earth,” Donnie says, tone low. “They ambushed us in our own home, and then held us captive. We nearly didn’t get away, but Mikey--”

“Saved the day,” Mikey interjects, grinning wide. “You guys could learn a thing or two my survival guide to Dimension-X. Rule number two, _never_ go unarmed. Ever. At any time.”

Leo is feeling a tad dizzy still, so he asks, “What’s rule one?”

“Don’t trust anyone or anything!” Mikey informs him.

“So, does that include us, or… You know what? Never mind.” Not something he actually wants answered. Leo moves on. “Where’s Raph?”

“He’s hiding somewhere else,” Donnie explains. “Along with Casey, since he got tricked into delivering himself right into their capture. Got a concussion for it, too, from his own bat.”

“How-”

“His clone.”

“And April?”

“MIA. We couldn’t grab our phones, and even if we had, she’s probably being hunted by her clone, too. She might not have answered at all.”

Leo grimaces. He doesn’t like these odds. They’re divided, injured, and apparently fighting _themselves._ How are they supposed to outsmart themselves?

“What do they want?” Leo asks, drawing his legs close. “Why’re they doing this?”

“They wanna be us, duh,” Mikey says, getting up and starting to swing his nunchucks around. Nervous tick. He’s worried. “They think we stole their lives n’ identities from ‘em, but don’t get it that they were _ours_ first. So. They’re a little pissed off.”

Leo rubs at his face. Then hisses, touching the crusted cut on his cheek. He glances over his brothers, cataloguing their injuries from being subdued; Mikey seems relatively unharmed, excluding some shallow cuts on his arms. Donnie, meanwhile, has blooming dark bruises around his shoulders and neck. He notices Leo staring.

“My interrogation with your clone got a bit, ah, _heated,”_ Donnie says, smiling wryly. Leo feels an internal shiver of disgust.

“Sorry,” he says. (If he put his hands on the marks, would they align perfectly?)

“Not the worst thing you’ve done, and this wasn’t even _you.”_ Donnie says it easy, airy, even, but Leo feels old shame bite at him regardless. He’s made mistakes, and his brothers have been hurt for it.

Another mistake was letting their time clones have the impression they’d ever be welcome home again. This needs to be rectified.

“Where are we?” Leo asks, changing the subject. They need to get moving.

“Few blocks west on forty-fifth,” Donnie says. He nods at their surroundings. “This is that apartment above the boutique that just closed down.”

“And we’re sure we’re secure?”

“It’s better than being out in the open, right? And we had to lay you down until the drugs worked their way out of your system.”

“Thank you for that, but if this is the spot you picked specifically to run and hide in, then doesn’t that mean your clone-”

A window shatters elsewhere in the apartment. They all freeze.

Damn. Leo didn’t want to be right about this. He exchanges grim looks with his brothers; Donnie is frustrated with himself, and Mikey is wearing battle-calm like a mask, now. There’s a window in the empty room they’re in, but it’ll attract attention when they break it.

This will be messy and inelegant. Wonderful. Leo’s head is too fuzzy for precision right now, anyway.

Leo holds out a hand, silently rising to stand. Donnie reads the unspoken request and hands him the twin scabbards.

-/-

Punching out Purple Dragons used to be more entertaining. Now, Raph just feels sort of sorry for the stupid gangsters. They crumple easily, and helpfully stay passed out when he drags their bodies into a corner. The gang-front cookie factory is silent except for his footsteps, as well as Casey’s breathing.

His friend is sitting in one of the card table’s chairs, head in his hands as he copes with his injury. Raph gets it, he’s had concussions before; they’re not fun.

“You get yourself to the hospital soon as we give the all clear,” Raph instructs his friend, walking back over. “Use a taxi, we’ll pay you back.”

“’m not gonna leave you guys to deal with this ‘lone,” Casey says muzzily, scowling. His hair is flopped into his face, sticking to the sweat on his forehead. He lost his bandana when his gear was taken, probably.

Raph notes the tension in how Casey is holding himself, beyond just the pain of his head injury. Ah, yeah, the only weapons the grab bag had were his and his brothers’ weapons. None of Casey’s. An oversight on their part, which won’t happen again.

For now… Raph goes back to the goons he knocked out. Looting unconscious criminals is satisfying still, at least.

“Here,” Raph says, tossing two objects at Casey. He keeps the third, twirling the switchblade while his friend fumbles. “They’re no hockey stick, but I figure they’ll do.”

Casey is already slipping on the brass knuckles. He grins his typical gap-toothed, slightly unhinged grin, flexing his fingers around the weapons. Like a child at Christmas.

“These are illegal in New York,” Casey says, admiring them. “I’ve _always_ wanted a pair.”

“’Course you have, psycho. You think you’re up to a fight if it comes to one?”

“Always. Casey Jones _never_ backs down from a fight.”

“Except when we need to retreat.”

“Except for then.”

Raph rolls his eyes. His brother’s a freak, his best friend is a psycho- Raph isn’t exactly cuddly, either. No one on their team is. Which is why he’s confident that soon as they regroup, get some extra muscle to back them up, they’ll be out hunting down their clones quick as-

The skylight windows above them shatter. Raph curses the same time as Casey does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs: drug usage/mention, mild torture (no gore/permanent injury), general ptsd/dark conversations & internal dialogue, mild illness, mention of deceased parent.
> 
> the hell ride for the 2012 kids just keeps going and going and going and going and going and going and g


	6. A3|P3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> me, months ago: oh boy, i can't wait to complete and post my TMNT Big Bang chapter fic in a timely manner again this year
> 
> 2020: ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this year has been so very much. nonstop too much in fact. i'm tired and recovering from a bad swing of depression. the last two updates to various fics have gone with little to no reactions/comments and i'm possibly in a bitter mood over this + generally really distressed by the world's state. tl;dr sorry for leaving you all hanging for so long, i am actually telling the truth now when i say i want to finish posting this within a reasonable span of time (just gimme some wiggle room since my family is in the midst of trying to prep for moving).
> 
> _Reminder: we’re seeing current events from the doomed!kids’ perspective rn. The space!kids are the ones hunting them down._
> 
> trigger warnings in the end notes, click through to 'em etc, oh and BLM + ACAB + fuck the system. i can't believe we have to state the obvious rn, smh.

Mikey isn’t exactly happy about their situation right now. Obviously, no one is, but he’s got a beef with one thing in particular.

Did they have to do this tonight? _Family Dinner_ night? It’s kind of like an ironic joke, but not one that jives with his sense of humor.

The impulse to run off on his own is strong. They’re stronger as a unit, teams stick together, blah blah blah all that good stuff, but it’s _way_ easier to hide when you’re on your own. His brothers haven’t ever spent extended time alone before, let alone in such a hostile environment like Dimension-X, so they don’t _get_ that. The skitter-scatter prey instinct is twitching in his hands and invading his thoughts and it’s _very_ distracting.

He throws three stars at Raphael, the stupid shouty clone of his stupid shouty brother, and all of them miss. Mikey inwardly curses. This is _not_ the time to panic. One slip up, and-

Something has him jumping up onto a telephone pole, just as miniature explosions go off on the rooftop he’d been on. Space Casey has exploding _baseballs_ on top of exploding pucks, so, that’s great. Where do you even get space baseballs, anyway? Is it a universal thing?

“Are there baseball teams in space?” Mikey shouts down at Space Casey.

“Wh- Shut up and _hold still!”_

Eh, he wasn’t expecting a real answer. Raphael is joining him in playing chicken with telephone wires and electrocution, so he should get going anyway. Half a block later, Mikey glances and sees his version of Leo and Donnie rejoining the fight. They’d been ensnared by Space Donatello like, two blocks ago, because he somehow made a forcefield cage. His brothers told him to run, so… Mikey ran.

But, they got out, so. Cool. None of them are captured or dead yet. That’s good. But Donatello is hot on their tail, albeit with a limp to his run, so that’s less good. Progress, though!

Mikey flinches at a blur and catches a pair of tri-pronged blades with his chain, the taut metal creaking as Raphael bears down on him. The internal war of his fear versus flippancy makes a strained smile stretch across Mikey’s face.

“Aw, Raphie,” he coos at the clone. He’s rambling, he can’t stop. “If you guys wanted to visit, you could’a just asked! We would’ve set up the guest room, rented some movies, popped some corn-”

Raphael wordlessly snarls in his face. Mikey headbutts him hard enough to hear cartilage crunch.

-/-

Casey feels like shit, but he’s still standing, so fuck it. He’ll go down swinging.

Except while Michelangelo and Raph are furiously tearing at each other, tearing up the factory in the process, Leonardo is standing there and _patronizing him._

“You’re already hurt badly,” Leonardo says, swords pointed at the floor. “You should surrender and seek medical attention. Once you have, and we’ve taken care of the others, maybe you and our Casey could come to an agreement-”

“Oh my god can you shut up and stab me already?” Casey gripes. He’s badass enough to keep up with the biggest and baddest the ninja world has to offer. He is _not_ going to let himself be disrespected like this.

Leonardo shifts, gaze flickering with discomfort for a second. “It’s pointless to struggle, you’re going to hurt yourself worse.”

Casey possibly more pissed off than he’s ever been. “Don’t come in here,” he growls, stepping around behind the table, “with some kinda half-assed,” grips the edge, “ _daisy pickin’, weak willed BULLSHIT!”_

He throws the shitty little table at Leonardo. It’s sliced neatly in half, with no effort on the clone’s part, but it’s enough. Timing it with the end of the downward swing of the blade, Casey hurls himself in between the table’s halves and punches Leonardo in the face.

The brass knuckles _kick ass._

The clone of his friend stumbles, badly wincing at the blow to his cheek. Casey’s scraped it, a decent bleed starting already. He smirks.

“Payback for the number you guys did on _my_ Leo’s face,” Casey boasts. “Now you match.”

Leonardo hisses, third eyelids fluttering shut. The whiteout of killer intent is fucking scary, and Casey feels his blood practically _roar_ with anticipation.

Concussion be damned. He’s gonna beat the shit out of these assholes.

-/-

“You’re all as bad as the Foot, if not _worse!”_

“For your information, the Foot are allies, now.”

Donnie ducks the swing of his own naginata. It’s weird fighting himself. A younger, more naïve version of himself. They’re evenly matched, regardless, and they’ve hit a weird stalemate of striking and dodging, while their respective team members go at each other.

“That just proves there’s something _wrong_ with you all!” Donatello accuses, jabbing rapid-fire at Donnie, who weaves around the attacks.

“Karai is the one in charge, it’s different!” Donnie snaps, defending his sister. _Their_ sister, actually.

“How? _How_ is it different? They’re still in New York, they’re still hurting people and causing misery for innocent families- or did they become an outreach program while we were gone?” Donatello scoffs derisively. “One tyrant for another. I cannot _believe-”_

Donnie yells and spins to bring a brutal slash down on his opponent. The blade of his naginata lodges itself in the wood of Donatello’s staff, compromising it. It only takes a three-step maneuver to snap the pole, sweep Donatello’s legs out from under him, and end with a blade at his throat.

“You,” Donnie says, deathly soft, “have _no idea_ what we went through with her. You have _no idea_ what we did to obtain this peace.”

Donatello swallows defiantly, uncaring how an edge presses harder. “What good is peace if you built it on lies? On stolen lives?”

Donnie merely blinks. Staring down at this person, hearing his accusations of crimes committed- Donnie feels hollow, dry of emotion. Only one thing remains.

“Peace is peace,” Donnie replies, unflinching. “As long as we’re safe, nothing else matters. Not anymore.”

The fights raging on around them, the city noise, the distant sound of sirens- it’s all very quiet, for a moment. Just the two of them in a bubble, glaring.

“…What happened to you?” asks Donatello, angry and horrified in equal measure.

( _Good question,_ Donnie doesn’t say.)

( _Our family was always fucked up, right from the start, and then our father died in our arms,_ he doesn’t say.)

( _You can’t care about anything else,_ he doesn’t say, _because it all falls through your fingers in the end._ )

“I grew up,” Donnie says, lifting his weapon and shifting into a slashing stance once more. He doesn’t see the blur coming before it slams into him.

-/-

Raph lands a kick that sends the clone of his brother sliding down the rolling conveyor belt. It doesn’t do much but give him space to breathe.

Unhinged little bastard doesn’t obey _physics,_ apparently.

“Stop fuckin’ doing that!” Raph demands as Michelangelo spider crawls his way back up the slippery machine.

Michelangelo is still doing that _I’m-going-rip-out-your-throat_ smile. He _laughs_ as Raph jumps away. Jesus Christ, why are all Mikeys such a pain in his ass.

Casey is on ground level, somehow holding his own against Leonardo despite being badly concussed. Raph growls at himself for letting Michelangelo get under his skin; he can’t let Casey carry the weight of their duo. Not right now. (Not ever. He’s not just going to let himself be sidelined ever again, not when someone important to him is _right there_ and _needs him-_ )

Michelangelo is as much of an acrobat as any Mikey should be. He’s all over the place, using the unusual battleground to his advantage. Thus, Raph is at a _disadvantage,_ given his specialty is planting his feet and acting as a mutant battering ram. He’d rather have fought Leonardo, but Michelangelo came right at him from the second he hit the ground running-

Duck, dodge, weave, return fire, slash, jab, block, block, dodge- it’s going on and on and Raph is lagging. The difficulty pinning down a nunchaku wielder is ill-suited to Raph’s preferred combat style. The precision he needs in order to catch his brother’s clone’s chain weapons is _beyond_ important, unless he feels like nursing a broken wrist or hand.

“Y’know,” chirps Michelangelo, hopping backwards and balancing on the edge of a conveyor belt, “we aren’t _actually_ gonna kill anyone. Or, I’m not gonna. Unless I have to. You could just say Uncle and we’d take you to the professor! He’s in sleep mode right now, but once we wake him up and tell him what’s happened, I’m sure he’d take ya into space no problem-”

“ _We’re not goin’ back to space!”_ Raph bellows. Void, void, a sprinkling of stars and then _more black void._ He’s not going back to space. _Fuck that._

“Well _we_ aren’t either, asshole!” Michelangelo shoots back. “One of us is gonna have to give, and it’s not gonna be me or mine!”

“We’ll see about that,” Raph says, and changes weapons, grasping the handles of four kunai, one in each hand, and throwing them with pinpoint accuracy. Michelangelo yelps satisfyingly as he dodges to the side, giving Raph the opening to jump on him and make use of his stolen knife.

Except Michelangelo laughs high and wild, catching the knife and his wrist and _twisting,_ forcing him to drop it. Michelangelo shoves him off, twirling the switchblade, slashes upwards at Raph’s retreat.

Razor metal meets flesh. Raph screams.

-/-

Leo would like nothing more than to disengage from this fight. Beyond that their team is split up, two of them, including himself, hampered by injury, _humans_ have begun to take notice of the battle raging through their neighborhood. But no, they’d just be pursued, and having their backs to the enemy is idiotic.

The red and blue lights are chasing their fight’s path, now, and it’s only by the mutual desire to not be caught or _shot_ that their warring teams have paused several times to get distance. That’s not to say that they don’t try for weak points during that; Leo has a painful swelling beginning in his bicep, from where a baseball bat hit.

Leo hasn’t in a long while, but fighting an alternate version of his teammate is reminding him again to never underestimate Casey Jones. Despite being younger, this Jones is keeping up just fine with the skills Leo has honed in the past year. And, though he’d never admit it aloud, Jones is _scary_ to go up against.

For every attack Leo aims at him, Jones somehow _gets back up,_ and gives as good as he gets. Leo’s left arm is twinging, buzzing with the pain of what will be severe bruising. It’s slowing his reaction time, screwing his accuracy.

Which leads to one of his swords being knocked out of his hand, tossed off the roof to clatter to the ground. Leo’s fingers sting from the force, and barely has time to glance back at his opponent before Jones attacks again. With no time to dodge, Leo uses the flat of his blade to block and hisses through clenched teeth at the jarring impact.

“We don’t need to do this,” Jones growls out, breathless from exertion. “Tell ‘em to stand down. They’ll _listen,_ an’ then this can be over.”

Leo has to laugh. The glare from behind Jones’ mask is withering.

“Bold of you to assume they listen to me,” Leo says, grinning even as his left arm shakes.

Jones scoffs. “Doesn’t that just mean you’re a shitty leader, on top of being a fuckin’ sicko?”

Leo’s flicker of grim humor evaporates. Jones pushes harder against his block, metal bat shrieking. The shake in Leo’s arm worsens, and he’s forced to sloppily wrenched them apart, gasping as his arm burns. Jones is cursing, holding his forearm to stem bleeding of a shallow slash.

Leo straightens, not allowing his body to limp like it wants to. “I’ve dedicated my _life_ to being a good leader,” Leo intones dangerously, cold temper licking at his heels. “I’ve nearly _killed myself_ trying to keep my team alive and together!”

“And look where we are now!” Jones shouts, throwing his arms out in anger. Around them, their respective sides are still warring, the sirens of police circling in the distance as they hunt them. “Look at what you and your team did to us! This is _your fault!”_

“You weren’t supposed to come back!” Leo shouts in return, clenching his hands around his single katana. “You- I didn’t think you’d still exist, I thought you would all-”

Jones rips his mask off, exposing the raw fury on his face. “All _what?”_ he spits. “That we’d all just go away? So you could have a happily ever after, living _our lives?”_

“ _Yes!”_ Leo snaps, burning not just with fury, now, but shame, too.

Jones takes a half-step back, looking at him like he’s something terrible. Something to be reviled. His expression twists into disgust, snapping his mask down into place again.

“ _Fuck you,”_ Jones snarls, and for a moment, his glaring skull mask becomes steel. A vengeful ghost come back to drag Leo down to hell for what he’s done.

Leo bites his lip hard enough it bleeds, iron and salt, and it unlocks his muscles and stops the tremble in his arms. _He’s gone, he’s dead and gone and I killed him myself. That’s not here or now._

This is a different decision of his catching up to him. (Shouldn’t have told his team to ignore them, shouldn’t have told Donnie to lie to them, shouldn’t have, shouldn’t have-)

Jones comes at him again, fighting like a man possessed, and Leo tastes bitter blood as he counters.

-/-

Casey hears Raph’s scream and terror lances through his chest. He’s never heard a noise of such raw _pain_ from his friend, and he whirls, eyes searching, his and Leonardo’s fight screeching to a halt as they look for their teammates.

Raph falls over the edge of the processor, barely skimming his fingers over grip holds and tumbling to the ground. Metal dents under his weight. Raph lays in a heap, curled on himself and not getting back up.

“Oh, no, no no no-” Casey runs for his friend, ignoring how his head throbs and his balance falters. His hands are aching, bleeding sluggishly from various shallow cuts. He still uncurls them and touches Raph’s throat gently, feeling for pulse.

Raph groans. Relief floods through Casey for a split second, but then he sees the ooze of red coating the left of his face, spreading further even as Casey watches.

“Holy sh- oh, fuck, Raph lemme see, c’mon.” Casey is somehow keeping himself calm as he tilts Raph’s head, even as his friend makes a wounded, animalistic keen. Raph trembles, breathing labored as he tries to twist away, but Casey sees. Sees the mess that’s been made of his left eye.

A slash, deep enough Casey feels his stomach turn looking at it. The ruined eyelid flutters, useless reflex failing to help, while its twin blinks at the tears Raph is crying.

Casey, for a moment, is frozen. They’re alone, pinned down, and neither of them has anywhere near the medical knowledge Donnie does. They’ve run out of moves, they’ve got no other choices left, except…

“Please,” says Leonardo’s voice behind him. Casey flinches and whips his head around, vision blurry. From the concussion or unshed tears, he doesn’t know.

Their enemy is standing a few paces away, swords still drawn. He doesn’t look victorious; he just looks exhausted. Above Leonardo, crouched on a conveyor belt, Michelangelo stares with wide, wide eyes. Unerringly fixed on Raph’s crumpled form, expression unreadable as he watches.

“Surrender,” Leonardo says, “and this can all be over.”

“Fuck you,” Casey growls, even as his gut sinks, knowing he can’t fight them off on his own. Raph is only lucid enough to clutch his eye, hardly stemming the bleeding. But they can’t just _give up,_ not when it’d mean they’d lose everything they fought so hard for… even if it wasn’t theirs to have, in the end.

Casey has lost his family more than once. He can’t do that ever again.

“Case’…” Raph rasps, panting. “Gotta f-find Don…”

Casey clenches his fists, the hot metal of the 'dusters digging into his skin. God dammnit. God _dammnit._

“Okay. Okay. We-”

The last intact skylight implodes, raining glass shards onto the floor. Across the room from them, a figure barely catches themself before they hit the ground. Casey, Raph, the doppelgangers- they’re all struck silent as the figure shakes herself and lurches upright fully. Red hair hangs in her eyes, ferocious glare perfectly visible despite that.

_“April?”_ Casey and Leonardo ask at the same time. They shoot each other suspicious glowers, deeply wary as to _whose_ April this is.

The April in their midst takes two steps towards them, only faltering slightly on the first. Her jumpsuit is sliced and torn in multiple places; one sleeve cut off to be used as a makeshift bandage for her bloodied right hand. The April raises her sword at them, panting heavily.

“I’m only gonna ask once,” April hisses. “Who is who, right now? And which of you should I kick the ass of?”

Casey, though April is one of the closest people in his life, feels a flicker of fear in his heart. He doesn’t know if she’s _his_ April, either. How are they supposed to tell? Everyone is _literally identical._

“…No scar…” Michelangelo whispers to Leonardo. It’s not meant for anyone else, but Casey hears it.

It’s enough of a tell.

“We’re us! Fuck, I mean- we’re yours, April!” Casey shouts, not caring that Leonardo flinches and Michelangelo’s chains rattle.

“How do I know for sure!?” April demands, wild in the eyes. She looks and is acting like she’s been through hell. Maybe she has.

“You _know_ me,” Casey says fervently, “and I can prove it! You remember, like right after Fugitoid picked us up? The cycle we were hiding, and you made coffee, and I picked a shitty moment ‘cause I was freaking out still, and then you, me, n’ Donnie…”

Casey feels the looks he’s getting from the doppelgangers. Hears Raph quietly, raggedly breathing. April’s haggard expression lessens for a moment, relief shining in her eyes. She knows what he means, she knows he’s _him._

(A confession after the end of their world. Deep, deep in space. Laying out all their cards on the table, and putting to rest what had soured the friendship between him, her, and Donnie. No more petty arguments, no more grudges. Not when things so much bigger than that were on the line.)

The relief fades as Raph staggers to his feet, Casey’s arms wrapping around him automatically to hold him up. April sees Raph, sees the blood, sees how he’s holding his eye. She turns to the time clones and though Casey can’t see even a twitch in Michelangelo’s face, April obviously _knows._

The pressure in the room changes. The hair on the back of Casey’s neck stands up and the primal instinct to _get the fuck out_ rears it’s head for the second time in his life. There’s only been one instance of April using her powers that’s ever caused this reaction for him. It’s no better this time around.

“Casey,” April says, low and so, so angry, “get Raph out of here. I’ll deal with this.”

Leonardo and Michelangelo clearly want to stop them, but turning their backs to the biggest threat in the room is too much of a risk. Casey doesn’t even argue about him and their buddy retreating; he’s been holding off Leonardo purely because his opponent didn’t seem willing to seriously injure him. Insulting, yeah, but lucky.

The idea of Raph continuing to fight is moot point.

Casey drags Raph with him out through the backdoor to the factory, just as April’s hair goes weightless and her pupils blank out. The door shuts behind them, but Casey can still hear the crash of things being thrown.

“Case’, what about-”

“I’m pretty sure April’s got this, dude,” Casey cuts Raph off. “Worry about yourself.”

Raph growls, pained. By his eye or by leaving April behind, Casey isn’t sure. Probably both.

Though he’s confident in their friend’s skills, Casey still gives a silent prayer that April can pull this off. She’s powerful, sure, but she’s far from invincible. None of them are, that’s why they stick together, why they’re a _team-_

But at best Casey would get in her way, currently, and Raph is, though he’d hate to admit it aloud, a burden right now. They need to get as far away as possible, find some backup to send her way. That’s what their job is, now.

“They’ll catch up to us if we go on foot,” Raph grits out, holding the wad of gauze he’d applied sometime during the standoff. It’s already soaked, few white patches remaining.

Casey looks at the first vehicle he sees. A delivery van, older model and mediocre quality. It’ll do.

“We’re not gonna,” Casey says, and leaves Raph leaning against the hood so he can break the window.

-/-

April hasn’t ever felt like this before.

Energy crackles in her veins, following them directly to the pool in her core. A conduit. She’s practically trembling from the build up. Every time she clashes against her mirror reflection, the sensation increases. The only relief comes from expelling the power into attacks, following instinct as it urges her on, _fight harder, harder, harder._

It’s a little like exhilaration, a lot like mounting terror.

The time clone gives as good as she gets. At each turn, each dodge or feint, there she is: insufferably good at predicting April’s moves. April’s foresight has never developed beyond hunches and vague impressions; and yet, here’s her twin, having fine tuned it.

Infuriating. Dangerous.

April tries again and again to _end_ the fight. It doesn’t work. The swift and harsh takedowns she prefers aren’t working, as O’Neil just drags herself back to feet again and charges back into battle. They’ve moved further and further from April’s home, and that’s a blessing, because April would hate for her dad to see her like this.

She’s losing her practiced finesse, losing her _patience._ She wants this done and over with and some _answers_. What’s happening to her friends right now? What are the time clones doing to them?

The worst-case scenarios running through her head are pushing her to the edge. Frustration and fear combined become her desperate fury. It makes April sloppy in her strikes, her technique, but. That doesn’t matter right now, not when it’s drawing out much needed power.

(She hasn’t used this much since… since That Time. Not since _She_ was in her head.)

O’Neil’s power echoes April’s, just as angered, just as desperate. And something in April is feeding on that, and in turn is being fed on by her clone. That feedback loop only continues as they cross blades, no matter how April tries to reel herself in. The line between a power-up and a power trip is thinner for her than most people, and she’s bordering it closer than she’d like.

Not that she’s had time for coherent thought. There’s just the rush rush rush of their fight, on and on as they clear rooftops and streets, leaping and pouncing on one another. They’re _literally_ flying, feet hardly touching down at all. The bubbles of shielding they throw up, every time one grabs the other in a psychic grip and tosses them, have grown strong enough they crack stone upon landing. Rubble and debris are added to their repertoire of weaponry after that.

Distantly, they’re aware of sirens starting to follow their path of destruction. The heady thrum of power in April’s veins- and presumably her doppelganger’s- is too intoxicating to let them care overly much.

But eventually, something breaks through to her. The swell of foreboding-fear-injury- _help-help-help_ drowns her senses for a split second, a visceral _pull_ guiding April away from this roof, this street, this fight.

Someone needs her. It’s the same feeling she’s had right before past disaster- Splinter, the most recent.

She hadn’t been in time, then. Hadn’t been able to summon the power necessary in that moment. _Not this time, not ever again._

But O’Neil tackles her, taking the opportunity April’s stillness presents; both of them releasing their swords to avoid accidental impalement of themselves. It’s down to fists and kicks, then. Grappling with each other, they reach a stalemate, equal in strength and countering every move.

Until O’Neil, snarling as she does, gets a hand on April’s temple. Her vision erupts into shards of agony.

( _-strapped down, the tool of her planet’s destruction, Kraang Prime’s glee in her futile resistance- the unreliability of her own body, her struggle to keep grief desperation frustration sorrow under wraps, the lack of control she has over her own life- losing everything, losing her father again and again, blaming everyone else, blaming herself- sweetly seducing promises of betterment, strength, safety, **power** \- life held in her hands and pulling it to pieces, ignoring the voices screaming at her, ignoring the wail caged by her ribs, her body no longer her own, rising and rising and rising-_)

April howls madly and rips the insidious control from her mind. She _burns._

She’s shaking, trying to sit up, when she regains her senses. The roof they’re on is… warped. It takes her a bleary second to place what she’s seeing, but when she does her stomach drops.

Spreading outwards from where they’d been, where they’d blown each other back from… the roof has taken on a sinuous form, wavelike in its halo pattern, and partially transformed into crystal.

Dimension-X crystal.

April staggers to her feet as her doppelganger does, the two of them in eerie sync. April is panting, can feel her wrist bleeding sluggishly from a deep scrape, but O’Neil looks even worse than stunned. She looks scared.

“What’s wrong with you?” O’Neil says, just loud enough to carry across the distance.

April bristles reflexively, drawing on her reserves to keep up guard even as her mind races. “What’s that supposed to mean?” _And when did you learn that trick? Because I didn’t._

“There’s… it feels like there was something, in your powers.” O’Neil visibly shudders. “It’s like you punched a hole through your core, and now it’s- it’s healed all _wrong.”_ She holds a hand out, fingers spread and summoning her alien blade to herself. April is processing the words that’ve just been said, forgetting to summon hers.

“Is that how you can do this?” O’Neil asks, her tone full of revulsion as she levels her sword. “You tore something out of yourself, and now you’re okay with doing all _this?”_

Breath hisses through April’s clenched teeth, abruptly remembering how to breathe, how to think. How to block out everything but the opponent in front of her. Her sword returns to her hand with barely a thought.

“You don’t know anything about me,” she says, deathly calm. O’Neil’s eyes remain on hers, and she doesn’t notice the crystal April psychically breaks off from the roof.

“We _were_ the same person,” O’Neil challenges.

“Maybe,” April replies, “but not anymore.”

April doesn’t have time for this. She has to find her friends.

The split-second shock April catches on O’Neil’s face, as the explosion goes off at her feet, is a sour victory. April doesn’t look back to see the aftermath of the underhanded attack; she races time and fate as she hunts the source of impending doom. The bandage she fashions from her sleeve is clumsy, but her wrist’s potential infection is the furthest thing from her mind, and so she runs on.

April doesn’t slow down as she finds the factory, continuing her full-tilt charge and crushing the window with a pulse of power. She falls with the shattered glass, momentarily stumbling as her exhaustion gets its claws into her. The high of battling O’Neil and the feedback of energy they’d shared- it’s wearing off rapidly, leaving her feeling hollow.

Until she sees Leo, Mikey, Casey, Raph- and can’t tell who is who. Her senses are becoming dulled, her accuracy of her warning shifting into blurriness.

So, she raises her sword, and threatens.

God bless Casey, too brash and _himself_ to pretend otherwise. It’s not even just the private memory he alludes to, but the emotion pouring out along with the words. She feels him, _knows him,_ and finds her footing.

Then Raph rises slowly, painfully, and she sees the blood streaking down his neck.

Her fury returns. She tells her boys to run. She turns her ire onto the culprits, no intention of mercy even as she feels their flickers of fear.

(April very, very carefully does not let herself have a flashback to That Night.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs: more violence, so very much violence, eye trauma with mild gore description, blood, PTSD symptoms, referenced/implied past-mind control, more injuries in general. lemme know if ive missed anything.
> 
> NYC residents within the splashzone of the violent identity crisis' over their rooftops: this nonsense is... actually the least frustrating thing to happen in 2020 so far
> 
> (i apologize for leaving everyone on a cliffhanger.... by leaving you on another cliffhanger. rip anyone who still cares abt this fic.)

**Author's Note:**

> [find my tumblr here :0c](https://onthespectrumwriting.tumblr.com/)


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